


The Aesop Fables Series

by claritylore



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Broken TARDIS, Duality, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Heart of the TARDIS, Immortal Ianto Jones, Immortality, M/M, Possession, Soulmates, Temporal Paradox, Temporary Character Deaths, The Hub (Torchwood), Time Shenanigans, Transformation, Unrequited Crush, Weirdness, duplication, missing year, time paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: Jack and the Doctor may have reversed a year of time, but some events are irreversible. Something happened to Ianto Jones in that year that never was that will have cosmic repercussions.
Relationships: Ianto Jones & Rose Tyler, Ianto Jones & The Doctor's TARDIS, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), Unrequited Tenth Doctor/Ianto Jones, Unrequited Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness, mentions of Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	1. The Slave and the Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Follows on from the Doctor Who S3 finale 'Last of the Time Lords', exploring a specific paradox created by the reversal of the year of time where Earth was conquered by The Master. 
> 
> ARCHIVE NOTE: This fic was originally written back in 2007, now rescued and reposted here for safekeeping.

Jack was gone. He’d run into the TARDIS on the Plass and got swept away through time. The team, well they were alone now. Things might never be the same again.

Except, he wasn’t gone. His face had been splashed across the evening news as a terrorist and the new Prime Minister himself, the man who had ordered them to lockdown and stay on reserve for him just in case the Toclafane turned out to be less than friendly, even made an appearance to appeal for his arrest.

They all stayed in the base, taking his orders, even when UNIT got the scoop instead. They remained there and watched the President greet the new aliens, along with the rest of the world. They watched him be killed and then the screens go dead.

That unlikely moment was when it all began for Ianto; the din; the breathing sound in the Hub; the heartbeat; the strange growing cacophony.

Ianto realised pretty quickly that the others didn’t hear it. Or perhaps they just weren’t paying attention. There was a note of panic in the air, for obvious reasons, and it seemed to be blocking the sound out to them. He tried to ask Toshiko if she could hear it too. Normally she would have taken time to listen, to figure it out, but she wasn’t interested. They were all in a state of confusion.

He supposed he should be quietly panicking too and wondering what was going on. Wondering why the President was dead. Ianto just couldn’t, not when the Hub was breathing in and out, pulsing, gasping.

Whispering his name almost.

He’d never heard it before but now it was like it was part of the air. Part of the walls. Part of everything. Ianto wanted to be upset along with the team over what they had just seen, and to be afraid. Yet he didn’t feel anything about it. The sound was too distracting.

But the others couldn’t hear it so he decided that it was best not to alarm them whilst they ran around, trying to get word from UNIT on what the hell was going on up on their flagship in the sky. There was always a chance he was just cracking up, after all. They’d been through quite a lot even before Jack had even run off, what with the rift splintering, a demon being released and Jack taking an extended break Chez Morgue. It wouldn’t be that unfeasible that he was just hearing things.

Indeed, it was entirely possibly that he _was_ actually panicking along with the rest of them, but doing it in a completely different way. Perhaps he was panicking but not feeling it somehow. That could be possible.

He watched Gwen and Owen make a dash for the exit, and then he watched Toshiko tapping away furiously at the computers, trying to get word of what was going on. He asked her again if she could hear the breathing sound but she just looked at him oddly and gave him a brief rundown on what she was doing.

So Ianto took a seat and tried not to listen to the sounds or the way the walls seemed to be heaving and rippling, like time was being squeezed. It didn’t work for long, despite his best efforts.

He slipped away and found himself going down through the levels. Normally only twelve or so levels were usable but due to the influx of visitors they’d had when the rift was splintering, they had opened up what seemed like a bottomless pit of extra levels below that. Ianto fancied nobody had been down there for years.

It was all empty now, just waiting to be shut away again. So Ianto had no idea why he was going down there, except that the sounds seemed... not stronger, but more insistent as he did. And he needed to know what the hell was calling him.

The funny thing was, he wasn’t scared. Didn’t feel a thing. He was numb, in ways he’d rarely ever been in his life. In the back of his mind, common sense was warning him away, telling him that if it turned out to be something alien, something hostile, something that should never be heard or seen, he would be in real trouble, since he was wandering around with no backup or anything. It was too distant to really dissuade him though.

Further and further he went. The base grew darker, the air grew thicker, his head felt lighter.

Then, suddenly, there was light.

‘Look, he’s awake,’ Owen’s voice flittered into his mind for a moment.

Ianto blinked and, realising he was lying down, promptly sat himself up. He had been lying on the couch in the Hub for some reason. How he got there, he had absolutely no clue. The sound was still there, though it seemed to be less tangible and more background; like a pulsing twinge of a headache.

‘Hey there,’ Jack’s voice drifted over him, cool as a breeze.

For a moment or two, he didn’t think anything of it. Then he remembered that Jack was gone. Ianto wiped the fuzz from his eyes and forced the noise away for a moment. He looked up and saw Owen leaning on his desk, Gwen next to him, Toshiko nearby and... something in-between them.

Was it Jack? It seemed to be, except... not.

It was like he was seeing with two sets of eyes. One could see Jack, his Jack, same as he’d always been. The other could see something else; a black hole in space and time that was just... just...

Jack moved towards him, smiling. ‘Decided to take a nap did we? During working hours? I never thought I’d see the day.’ He took hold of his hand and yanked Ianto to his feet.

The hand felt real enough. Human to the touch. Ianto frowned, confused.

‘Couldn’t stay away,’ Jack said, and tried to pull him into a loose hug.

Ianto jerked away and almost tripped backwards over the couch. The moment he saw the hurt look in Jack’s eyes he wanted to apologise and take his reaction back. The problem was, it wasn’t Jack. Well, it was and it wasn’t at the same time, so he wasn’t sure.

Then there was the slight problem that he couldn’t find the words. And even if he could have, he couldn’t find his voice. Not until Jack was getting right in his face, staring at him, trying to figure out what was wrong. ‘What is it? Are you alright?’

‘You’re...’ he managed to utter, his voice made of gravel, trapped mostly in his chest.

‘Back? Like I said, couldn’t stay away.’ He grinned, easily, flirtatiously.

Ianto shook his head, finding it hard to look Jack in eye, because half of the time it wasn’t his eyes he was seeing, it was the empty hole in space where a man should be. ‘You’re... _wrong_ ,’ he whispered, finally.

Jack’s expression turned shocked and then soured to wariness. ‘What?’

No further elaboration of that impression was particularly forthcoming to him. Ianto felt like his mind had been taken part hostage by the din. It was telling him things and, although he couldn’t explain what he was seeing, or the gut reaction it produced, there was no other word for Jack except for “wrong”; like it was infused into him.

The walls were vibrating backwards a little, recoiling from Jack and the black emptiness in the shape of a man entwined with his form. Ianto knew it was him, not some apparition or an alien because the scent was right. The touch felt right. He knew the man before him as well as ever he did, but it was like his eyes had been opened too far and he was seeing a secret that wasn’t his to see.

Gwen was quickly by his side, tugging on his arm, asking him what was wrong. Ianto was too distracted to notice her much except in passing, like a fly in his peripheral vision. Someone - Toshiko - said they had returned to find him asleep there on the couch, not long before Jack arrived back.

Ianto didn’t argue, even though he still didn’t know how he’d got there. The last thing he could recall was exploring the empty lower regions of the base, being drawn by something.

Something with a purpose.

That seemed to become clear the more he thought about it. Ianto felt like he could almost reach out and grasp whatever it was. Except he couldn’t, because it would be like trying to take hold of the air, or the wind, or the stars in the sky.

The others had moved on a bit from mutual agreement that Ianto was being weird, but Jack was still staring at him, warily. It didn’t really matter to him though because the black hole was becoming the more prevalent image before him. His expression was growing less and less affecting when his face was melting away to reveal truths Ianto had never suspected.

Besides, there were far more important issues at hand. Some wrong had been done; time was not working properly. The beating heart in the Hub was too fast, the constant whispering laboured now that he thought about it. Aside from it calling his name, he could hear it telling him that it wanted him to trust it.

Time had been reversed and hurt whatever it was that was reaching out to him. Somehow, he got the impression Jack was at fault; he was so dark, so strange, so unimaginably wrong, it had to have been him. Wherever he’d gone, he’d done something.

Ianto had to fix it. The voice was cradling him, telling him what he needed to know. There was no question in his mind that there was any malice or evil within it; only need. Nor was there any question that he would help it.

Slowly, he removed his jacket and tie and dropped them onto the couch. He needed to be comfortable to get to work. He became aware of something gripping his wrist and he could see the outline of Jack.

‘What are you doing?’ it asked and sounded just as Jack always did.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see enough of him now to even focus on him. Jack backed off and Owen grabbed him, roughly taking a look in his eyes and checking his glands.

‘Have you taken something?’ the Doctor asked, frowning.

Ianto shrugged him off, wanting to get to work. But Owen wasn’t having it. He manhandled Ianto into the medical round and made him sit on the table at the centre of it. Gwen, Tosh and the shape of Jack followed and watched him looking him over. He checked his vitals, all the while trying to get him to say something.

Since there was nothing relevant to speak of, and the air was already too noisy, Ianto couldn’t manage to get his voice out. It was the strangest thing; now even Owen looked like he was fluxing. It was entirely different to how Jack looked though. More like he was seeing the molecules comprising Owen shifting a little, back and forth. It was the same for Gwen and Toshiko. In fact, it was the same for everything.

The eyes which before spent so much time cataloguing words, or watching the coffee maker do its work, or witnessing any number of other mundane tasks, were now looking into the heart of molecules and seeing their path through the universe.

Strange.

When his colleagues could find nothing wrong with him, they let him go. Ianto immediately set to work on his first task; a device he didn’t know the name of, but knew how to build using parts the voice was directing him to gather. She - it was definitely a she - needed his natural aptitude for calculation and mathematics for the device he was building to work.

It took three days to perfect and he nearly rewired the whole base to ensure it would have enough power.

When he turned it on, he suddenly knew exactly what it was. He had built a paradox machine.

The base started to grind down as the power came to be diverted away more and more. Ianto heard whisperings amongst the team that perhaps they would have to sedate him but they did nothing but watch in the end.

So he set about achieving his second task. He started collecting the things that were needed and assembled them in the room directly below the water tower. They were simple things, small things; a marble, a leaf; a tiny fragment of cloth from Tosh’s jacket; a chip of wax from a candle; a bit of wire from one of the backup fuse boxes. Things like that. He did the easy stuff first.

When he started drilling in to find a specific fragment of concrete he wanted from the wall of one of the rooms, that’s when the team started following him around everywhere, taking it in turns to watch him, trying to engage him even though he didn’t respond.

Days began to pass by and every now and then he sensed Jack was there. Sometimes he could hear him speak too but it didn’t make much sense anymore. Jack was a nothing; an unnatural calm in the midst of a storm that was never meant to stop. Once he looked directly into him and almost felt himself falling into the darkness. It frightened him, for the first time since the thing had called for him. He tried not to look at him or hear him again after that.

They started trying to lock him up in the cells. But each time, she intervened and the slightest pressure would have the locks break and the door swing open, or the glass panels would always bend for him and let him out.

Ianto became aware of Toshiko spending more time with him, describing the things going on in the base; how they had seen him inexplicably set free each time on the CCTV cameras; how things were going missing around the place, only to appear elsewhere; how Owen was positive there was an extra step in the staircase in the main Hub and was terribly freaked out by it; how Jack could barely touch a thing without it sparking or burning him. She told him they knew something was happening and that he was connected to it, and she told him he had to tell them what it was. She told him they needed him.

‘ _She_ needs me more,’ was his only response.

It was the first time he had spoken in over a week and, unfortunately, it made them spend a lot more time attempting to get a reaction out of him. Ianto wouldn’t be intercepted, except for when they brought him sustenance. He didn’t answer any questions though. It wasn’t time for that yet.

Time rolled on and he kept building, holding all of the little things together with wires, so it looked like he was building some monstrous tree bearing a hundred different kinds of unnatural fruit. Owen called it crappy modern art. Gwen thought it might be some sort of emotional therapy. Toshiko looked for patterns in its construction to explain it. He didn’t know what Jack thought. Couldn’t tell anymore.

After a while, he decided he had enough things. The tree had grown across the entire room, stretching like vines, with thousands of seemingly random tiny objects tethered to it.

At one point the team decided to try and remove him from the base by force, only to trigger a lockdown. They soon realised that they could do nothing but allow him to continue.

They believed that whatever alien force had taken hold of him had taken hold of the Hub too. Repeatedly they tried to reason with “it” through him. They tried to get him to respond to ridiculous questions. Ianto wanted to reassure them and tell them that it was alright and that they should relax; nothing would happen to them. All she wanted was her freedom. They had no right to deny her that.

Not when it was their fault she was awake and aware, because they had woken her up by opening the rift in the first place.

But Ianto couldn’t find the words so he didn’t share. He just kept building until it seemed ready. Then he set about achieving his third task.

Ianto stood in the Hub, the team watching from the wings as he wandered around the water tower in circles. He stared into it, at the molecules assembling it, probing further than any human eyes should be able to to.

At some point, the black shape grabbed him by the arms and pulled him away. He pressed his eyes closed and went limp in his arms. Gradually he began to make sense of his words again for not having to see him.

‘Please tell me what’s happening, Ianto. Please.’

‘Need to remove the thorn,’ he told him, although partly it wasn’t him speaking.

‘What? Ianto look at me. Please... please tell me what’s doing this to you.’

If he sounded frightened or upset, it didn’t really register with Ianto. ‘The thorn from the paw of the lion.’ He sighed. ‘Not up on Aesop, then, Sir?’

There was a pause and then laughter, tinged with a mix of relief, surprise and concern. ‘I get it. Androlocles and the lion.’

‘I need to pull out the thorn.’

‘I... I don’t understand... And you’re still not looking at me, Ianto.’

‘The water tower, Sir... Need to get rid of it.’

‘Get rid of it how?’

Ianto pulled away, more of her volition than his own, deciding it was time to get going, but Jack was persistent. He grabbed him in what had to be some sort of flying leap and tackled him to the floor.

Somewhere nearby, Gwen and Toshiko gasped.

‘Ianto, please, look at me.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Why not?’

He paused, not sure what to say, considering not saying anything at all. In the end he decided he had been keeping his vow of silence long enough. It was time to start answering them again. ‘Can’t see you.’

‘Do you mean that literally?’

Ianto nodded his head. ‘You’re...’

‘Wrong? You said that before. I get it a lot, actually.’ Jack shifted and held him a little closer, apparently getting comfortable there on the floor in the expectation of keeping him there.

The Hub had other plans, of course and it wanted him away from the unnatural creature. ‘Let me go, I need to do this.’

‘What? What do you need to do?’

Ianto sighed and breathed in his scent, enjoying a few moments of peace in his arms; he had missed Jack since this happened to him, there was no denying that. ‘Where were you this past year?’

‘Uh... I was here, remember?’

‘No, the year that was erased.’

‘You... shouldn’t know about that,’ Jack muttered, stiffening at once and lowering his voice.

Ianto pulled away from him and got to his feet. He went back to circling around the water tower. ‘We did this before, in that year. I freed her. But you changed time. Caged her again... Brought me back here. We remember.’

He ran over to the area where the fuseboxes for the base were mounted on the wall, and started adjusting the switches and power settings. Then Ianto he ran over to the team. ‘I strongly urge you all to take cover now,’ he warned.

Uncertainly, they shuffled up the steps to the upper deck and viewed the Hub from behind the glass. The black hole that was Jack tried to take him with them too but he wanted to remain.

The air started to grow thick and some of the computers exploded, power surging through them incorrectly. After a few moments of expectant silence, the water tower suddenly rumbled and there was a giant _pop_. The metal structure and water was at once gone, and in its place stood an enormous column of dust. A blink later, it all crashed down at once, filling the entire Hub with a blast of grey, like it had been hit by the ash from a volcano. The team recoiled but were protected by the glass shield they had taken refuge behind.

Once it had cleared a little, they ran down and found Ianto standing where he had been before, covered in the dust from head to toe, light shining down on him from the new hole in the Hub ceiling.

‘Holy shit...’ Owen broke the stunned silence. ‘Well, I’m no expert in vacuum cleaners, but something tells me the Dyson won’t take care of this.’

‘What happened to it?’ Gwen asked, standing under the spotlight of sun, staring upwards. ‘One minute it was the water tower, the next... This is impossible!’

‘How?’ Toshiko questioned him, half disturbed, half excited.

‘At some point in time, every atom in the universe will constitute dust,’ Ianto responded, dreamily. ‘We all start that way. We all end that way. The molecules were shifted through time to an inert stage of their existence.’

‘Aw crap,’ Owen sighed as several bystanders from the Plass started looking down through the hole, right into the base. ‘Pass the Retcon somebody. How the fuck are we gonna explain this one?’ he asked his boss.

Jack didn’t even hear him, clearly more disturbed by what he’d seen than any of them. Although Ianto couldn’t see him, if he had he would have known that the expression stuck on his face was genuinely horrified. ‘What sort of a being has the power to shift molecules through time like that?’ he gasped. As far as he knew, that was a power not even the Time Lords possessed. ‘It can’t be.’

Ianto ignored the question entirely. ‘The thorn is gone. The sword pinning her to this time and place is finally gone,’ he said, in a satisfied manner. Then he slid down to the floor amidst the chaos of dust and knocked over computers, apparently making himself comfortable.

‘What are you doing?’ Tosh asked.

‘My head hurts,’ he said, and drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

He wasn’t allowed to remain that way for long. The next thing Ianto knew, he had been laid out on the metal table in the autopsy bay. He woke up jumpy as hell and heard Owen say he’d been given a shot of adrenaline.

The black hole that was Jack was anchored onto him, holding him tightly like he feared he would disappear at any moment. Ianto was quick to squeeze his eyes shut against seeing the darkness.

‘I need to know what’s going to happen,’ Jack insisted, ardently. ‘Ianto, look at me. Look at me. Look at me Ianto!’

The force in his voice startled him enough to comply and Ianto looked into the abyss. He became aware of Jack reaching out to him, holding onto him, keeping him from falling too far and reaching out to his mind.

Ianto let him in and flinched as he finally received an answer to the question of what happened to Jack the year he was gone. At the same time, he knew Jack was seeing the same lost time from his perspective; all the memories unnaturally returned to him.

‘So that’s where you were,’ Ianto muttered, sadly, ‘hanging in chains, watching the diamonds tear up the skies. Oh Jack.’

As he left the abyss, he began to see Jack twofold again; saw his face for the first time in weeks. He could see the shock and grief and he ached for him, even as she told him not to be so foolish and not to look at the _thing_.

‘No Ianto... You can’t let it do that to you,’ Jack said

‘It’s how it’s supposed to be...’

‘No!’ Jack shook him, forcibly. ‘It’s not! That year was reversed for a reason! She isn’t supposed to be free, not like that!’

Ianto fought to get off the table and pushed anyone who tried to stop him away. Whatever they said, he could see the lifespan of the universe and the being which gave him that power was too powerful to be chained to one space and time. It wasn’t right. It felt almost as unnatural as Jack.

‘Listen to me! If she made you build a paradox machine then that means she wants something to happen that isn’t meant to be. You gotta believe me, this isn’t right.’

‘It is...’

‘And why the hell was she was buried here anyway? Must have been by something or someone powerful. They must have had a good reason.’

‘Of course, Jack. She’s a TARDIS.’ He looked around, at everything; seeing the Hub in every state of being in every time; seeing it through the eyes of a being so powerful it existed outside all natural boundaries. ‘Not too many of them left. That’s reason enough to keep one on ice, here on the rift were she would always be trapped, inert, pinned down, unable to ever die.’

‘Uh excuse me, TARDIS? As in blue box thing your Doctor friend likes to travel around in...?’ Owen chipped in.

‘Yes. And like Torchwood Three,’ Ianto replied, calmly. ‘We’re inside a TARDIS, Owen. We just never knew it before. This base, all of it, is her insides. She’s been asleep for a long time but you woke her up when you opened the rift. She wants me to free her...’

‘Why you?’ Gwen asked, eyes wide and a little scared.

‘Don’t let her do this to you,’ Jack cut in before he could answer, practically growling. ‘She can’t have you Ianto. You can’t possibly want this.’

He hesitated, not really knowing. The tug was so strong. The din so loud. He didn’t know how he could ever possibly refuse such need, such want, all directed at him and him alone. Beside, what was his life worth anyway? It would be preposterous to even try and calculate his tiny mortal existence comparatively.

Ianto felt a little punch drunk as he made for the exit. Owen and the girls made to stop him but Jack held them back and told them to get out of the base. They protested, of course, until he pulled rank.

They left and the black shape moved in behind Ianto, following him. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he informed him.

‘Why? She’ll eject you the moment she’s free, you know that. You’re unbearable to her.’

They entered the elevator together and stood in it, side by side.

‘I want to watch if this is how it’s going to be. You’ve spent weeks amassing a collection of tiny pieces of junk. So what’s going to happen? They’ll be turned to dust too?’

‘No, the opposite. I selected things containing atoms that will, or rather would have, one day become part of things of power; a marble containing three atoms destined to become part of the energy matrix for a supercharged light weapon; a piece of concrete from the walls that was once part of her original power source; a toenail of Owen’s containing an atom on course to be part of a supernova billions of years from now. The paradox machine I built makes them usable in the now. They will be shifted into the moment of their most powerful forms and together they will give her a new heart. A new life; the power of the vortex.’

‘And you? Why does she need you? What _molecules_ do you contain that she wants?’ he asked, emphasising the word “molecules” by doing the inverted commas sign with his fingers. ‘I saw her shift you too, in those memories she gave you... I saw her kill you...’

‘It’s not... look, would it be better to be like you than to be with her, Jack? To be an empty hole in time and space? Are you better?’

Jack smarted at that low blow. ‘I didn’t choose to be what I am. And you’re not choosing this. She’s _making_ you choose this. You must see that.’

‘No she...’

There was some buffeting and the elevator shook, throwing them around.

‘What the hell...?!’

‘It’s almost time.’

They reached the right floor and Ianto leapt out, almost excitedly. Jack grabbed onto his hand to stay with him, and only just narrowly avoided being taken down as the elevator chord snapped and it plummeted. Jack looked back at the doors, gingerly, and was gratified to see that Ianto looked surprised too.

‘She just tried to...’

‘No it was... she was just trying to warn you off.’

Jack barked a sarcastic laugh at that notion. ‘This isn’t like the Aesop fable, is it? In that one, the slave pulled the thorn from the lion’s paw, and so the lion saved his life later on, right? You pulled the thorn but she’s going to kill you anyway.’

‘You still don’t understand... I know this is how it’s supposed to happen.’

‘Right, right, because she showed you memories of the year I erased from time...’

‘No! Because...’ Ianto pressed his hands to his head and started pacing. ‘You want to know the truth? The truth is, she’s not doing this to me. It’s not her Jack... it’s me. _I’m doing this._ ’

‘What?!’

‘I’m _already_ with the vortex. I’m _already_ part of the thing that flows out of the heart of every TARDIS there ever was. To become part of it, at any time in any reality, is to be one with it forever, outside of time. No, _part_ of time itself. She hasn’t done anything to me Jack except for one thing... she connected me to myself. Myself within the vortex.’

He stepped back, blinking, and for the briefest moment Jack thought he saw the vortex’s power flash across his eyes, like a pure white volt of electricity. Ianto turned and Jack grabbed onto him by the hand. They stumbled along a few paces, Ianto trying to move forwards, Jack trying to pull him back.

‘Let me go!’

‘No way!’

Realising he wasn’t going to get free by force, Ianto relented a little and came face to face with Jack, squinting against what he was seeing. ‘I helped make you what you are, you know. I remember changing you. I remember Rose Tyler; her heart touching our heart...’

Immediately it had the desired effect of making Jack recoil from him. ‘That’s not...’

‘I couldn’t have seen that in my mind if this isn’t supposed to happen. You must see that.’ Finally he slid free of his hands and staggered backwards from him.

He made it all the way to the door at the end of the corridor before Jack regained his composure enough to call to him. ‘Wait, Ianto! Answer me this...’

‘What?’ Ianto asked, only half turning back to him.

‘Who turned the water tower into dust? You or her?’

Ianto stared at him through half-lidded eyes, still having to fight to look at him. ‘Me.’

‘And who built the paradox machine?’

He hesitated for a moment. ‘I used leftover parts of her.’

‘So it was you. Not her. Okay. Now, I know for a fact that Torchwood Three remains here for a good long time past now. I’m from the future remember? So tell me this; if according to history as I know it this base doesn’t just disappear one day, how is it possible that this TARDIS is supposed to be freed now, rather than sent back to sleep the way she’s meant to be?’

Ianto frowned, unable to square what he was saying with what he thought must be correct.

‘It doesn’t make sense does it?’

‘The paradox machine will allow...’

‘Exactly! That’s just it! Before, it was the Master’s paradox machine which allowed things that weren’t supposed to be to happen. Probably not just here; probably all over the place. That year wasn’t supposed to be and I reversed it. But if you became part of her energy core, part of the infinite vortex, _even_ during that year... there’s no way back from that. You were thrown out of normal time.’ Jack edged closer and closer to him, and the voice in Ianto’s mind started screaming at him not to listen, loud enough to almost make his ears bleed. ‘That’s why you’re part of it,’ Jack continued, ardently. ‘It’s not because this is actually supposed to happen, it’s because it already happened with the intervention of a paradox machine, and you were thrown out of linear time. That couldn’t be reversed even when that year was reversed. So now you exist in both places. You’re both here _and_ there, and she’s opened the gates between you and the you from that year. Do you see what I mean?’

Ianto began to sway on his feet, not sure what to do, his mind beginning to split apart. ‘I think... perhaps you’re right.’

‘This TARDIS obviously sensed what you are and called you. But it’s not supposed to be this way, it’s... well it’s...’

‘Wrong?’ he finished his sentence with a smile.

Jack almost smiled at that. ‘I’m beginning to hate that word, but yes.’ Finally he reached him and held his hands tightly. ‘If you want to go back to that Aesop analogy we’ve been playing with, you’re not the slave. I think you’re the lion. You’re the one who needs to get a thorn out of your paw.’

‘I don’t understand?’

‘Send her back to sleep. Stop her from channelling that other you, the one in the vortex, into your mind. You must be able to do it.’

‘I...’ He flinched, hearing her calling him even more insistently, demanding he finish what he started and set her free to roam the universe again. ‘That won’t work. She opened the door between us but she’s not perpetuating it... he is.’ Ianto cried out involuntarily as she screeched in his mind. She had grown in strength over time after connecting to the vortex through him, he knew that, but this was too much.

Before he knew it, the black shape of Jack was carrying him away somewhere. He was taken around the corner and set on the floor before the paradox machine he’d built. Jack pulled out his gun and aimed at it. ‘For a start, let’s take it back to a time before you even built that construct in the other room... Okay?’

Ianto breathed in deeply, not sure if it was a good idea or not, but nodded. Jack took a shot and blew it up, and suddenly calmness returned to the base. The air cleared and no longer felt so expectant.

Her voice grew less strong but more angry than he’d heard before.

‘Let’s see if it worked.’ Jack helped him to his feet and they limped into the room where he had gathered the thousands of objects he had intended to time-shift into a new power core.

It was all gone.

‘I guess we’ve been taken back to the point just before it came online,’ Jack said. ‘We were at the eye of the storm in that room. Oo I bet Owen, Gwen and Tosh are back on the base now.’

‘They are,’ he said, and rubbed his forehead.

‘Do you still hear her?’

Ianto nodded and averted his eyes from Jack again after nearly looking at him head on. ‘And him. Me, I mean. I’m still not... not entirely me.’

‘Alright, now, what would happen if you were to revert the TARDIS? I mean, the same way you changed the molecules in the water tower. Revert this whole base to what it was before we ever opened the rift and send her back to sleep that way. She will never have opened a link between you and the other you in the vortex.’

‘I... I don’t know if I can,’ he said, honestly. ‘It’s so much to try and channel out and control. I’m only human, Jack.’

‘You are and you aren’t, I think.’ There wasn’t really any other way to explain how he was simultaneously plain old human Ianto and a Ianto who was basically a fraction of infinity; both human and energy, linked between incompatible realities.

‘She’ll try to stop me, close the link down. She’s already threatening to... I can hear it. She’s angry, Jack.’

He put his arms around him, protectively, without even thinking, only realising his faux pas when Ianto flinched. ‘Sorry.’

‘No... no I think... this is the solution, Jack! Shield me.’

‘What?’

‘Shield me! You repel her. Shield me!’ Ianto clamped his hands on either side of Jack’s head and slowly opened his eyes to him, clearly fighting himself not to look away. ‘You can stop her from stopping me. Let me flow through you. Hold her back from me.’

Jack did the same and pressed his hands to Ianto’s head, staring back into him. ‘Do what you need to do. I won’t let you go.’

They slid to their knees as Ianto began to look more and more stricken. Jack could feel him falling into his mind again and did his best to hold onto him. The further in he went, the more he too could sense the TARDIS; it was calling Ianto back, demanding he help her. Then Ianto’s form seemed to give way to something else, to a creature made of light with his face. Jack saw himself reflected in its eyes; saw the emptiness in the shape of a man he truly was. He had to fight himself not to run scared from it. The only reason he didn’t was because Ianto looked exactly the opposite, like he was made of the fabric of reality itself. He was beautiful. The very opposite of what he saw himself to be. A true image of yin and yang together.

He held on, even when it felt like he was going to implode, even when the power felt like it was going to overwhelm him.

Then the voice of the TARDIS retreated and went silent. Ianto became Ianto again but went limp in his arms. Jack cradled him, holding his breath until he opened his eyes.

Ianto smiled softly at him. ‘I can see you,’ he said.

‘I can see you too,’ Jack replied, numbly, and stroked his cheek. ‘Is she gone?’

‘The TARDIS? Yes. She’s sleeping again. We did it.’

‘So no more Owen running up and down the steps, insisting there are too many of them? No more things going missing? No more electric shocks?’

‘Nope. Normality has been restored.’ Ianto put a hand on his chest, over his heart. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Jack I... I’m so sorry.’ Ianto’s expression, which had been so sweet a moment before, turned sad. ‘For letting you be what you are, I mean. We couldn’t resist Rose’s will...’

‘Hey,’ Jack said, quickly, mostly because he didn’t really want to discuss that ever again, ‘no more of this “we” stuff. That isn’t you.’

Ianto rolled out of his arms and struggled to his feet, carefully avoiding his eyes.

‘Right? That link is gone, right?’

‘I...’ he began, not quite sure what to say.

‘Wait, tell me you’re not still...!’

‘No! No, I’m just me. I’m not... It’s not what it was before. Nothing like it, but...’

‘But what?’

‘It’s there. The connection. Faint now... but I can still feel the tug in my chest. The split. It’s hard to explain.’ Ianto put his hands on Jack’s shoulders and gently kissed him. ‘You know something? You’re not wrong. Not at all,’ he breathed.

‘No?’

‘You’re contrary to the power a TARDIS lives on, and against everything a Time Lord knows. They can sense that, it’s true. But you’re not wrong. You’re just... opposite.’

Jack thought about it for a moment and then smiled. ‘I can live with that.’

He looked into Ianto’s eyes, noting that there was nothing otherworldly to be found in them anymore. It was just plain old Ianto; the one he liked best of all. And Ianto looked right back at him, feeling overwhelmingly pleased to see the Jack he knew and loved in place of the terrible darkness. They wound up grinning at each other like a pair of mad fools.

‘What now?’ Ianto asked once the moment had passed.

‘Hmmm... good question. I know... want to go count some steps?’

That was so mad, and so perfectly Jack, Ianto couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the notion. ‘You want to go up to the Hub and count the steps?’

‘For starters. Then I think we should count the steps on the ladder under my office.’

Ianto rolled his eyes. ‘You’re so subtle.’

‘This is the first time you’ve looked at me properly in weeks. Call me an opportunist but... well, I’ve missed you.’

The arm around Ianto’s back pulled him closer to him and the hand on his hip squeezed. Ianto realised he’d missed Jack too, more than he could say. So instead of protesting at the silliness of that suggestion, as he probably normally would, he just nodded and let Jack lead him away, up to the Hub, to waste time counting steps.

He had plenty of time to waste now, after all.

Just like Jack.


	2. The Ant and the Chrysalis

The blood which blossomed out of his stomach as he hit the ground was surprisingly dark and thick. Ianto looked at his hand, saw the stuff dribbling down his fingers and wrist, and frowned. The pain didn’t hit for a moment or two but when it did, it was like being split in two all over again.

A horrid gurgling, choking sound that didn’t seem to even belong to him erupted from his chest and he lost all his breath. Everything started to fade out and he heard other gunshots, shouting and Jack’s voice somewhere nearby, but distant like it was on the other side of a tunnel. He wanted to reach out and hold onto it, hold onto life, but he knew he wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter.

Ianto slipped away, quietly, before anybody made it to him.

He came to in a place made of fire, white light and mirrors. Standing before him was a creature made of the light with his face, like a distorted reflection but less solid. Tendrils of energy connected them together, forehead to forehead, chest to chest, hands to hands. Ianto found, every time he moved, the being seemed compelled to do the same.

Of course he knew who it was. There was no need for any introductions. Ianto felt an odd sense of completion he hadn’t known for a while, not since he’d unwittingly been sliced in two by an irrevocable temporal paradox. The other him felt the same and, of course, he knew that immediately.

 _What do we want?_ vortex-Ianto asked. _Life?_

Ianto found himself nodding. The sum total of all his desires could be summed up with only one word: _Jack._

 _Jack,_ the being repeated after him, exactly the same.

_Never want to leave him alone._

They drifted closer to each other, near enough to touch, the vine-like ties of energy between them shortening, almost enough to mould them into one.

_We never shall._

_Can we really do that?_

_Our need runs deep. Time will bend._

Ianto nodded and his second self did the same. Just how much of a halflife he had been living of late, trying to ignore the tug in his chest and the desire to reach out to the other half of his soul, really hit home. He’d been trying so hard to be normal, to ignore the enormity of the change within him and to shut the connection down, he had been hurting them both. Ianto could see that now.

 _Do not deny us, we are one in two,_ the other Ianto told him. _We are not one with either reality, or either world, here or there. We are only one with us._

_I know. I know. I’m not completely human, you’re not completely vortex. So what are we?_

_Wrong?_

A jolt of humour passed between them.

_Will I be able to return here if I go?_

_Always._

_Okay. Send me back. Send us home. To him._

Ianto hated the feeling of the tethers between them stretching, his other self becoming more distant, but the rush of life coming back into him was phenomenal. Idly he wondered if it felt like this for Jack when he came back; so full, so strangely excited. He decided on that way that it was unlikely. It was one thing to come back from a void and another to return from the central hub of everything that ever was. When he returned to life, Jack always looked haunted. He didn’t think he would.

As he opened his eyes and drew in his first new breath, Ianto couldn’t help but smile as he exhaled and then laugh, softly. He was alive and it felt wonderful.

There was still gunfire in the air and he saw one of the aliens posing as Special Ops to abduct people drop. Then Jack came running over and skidded along the ground on his knees in a way which made Ianto wince, thinking about the inevitable grazing. He frantically started checking Ianto over, ripping his shirt, hands getting covered in his blood.

In barely a second Owen was pushing him out of the way, doing his own checks.

Ianto chuckled softly, the wound from the bullet was completely gone. ‘Need a new suit,’ he mused, idly, picking at the bloodied flaps of what used to be his clothing.

Jack gasped in hard and grabbed him in a hug nearly tight enough to kill him again, clearly almost breaking into tears and having to fight not to lose control. Then, just as suddenly, he pulled back and looked at him, questioningly, eyes growing a little hard.

‘I was going to tell you. All of you,’ Ianto told him, quietly.

‘Oh Ianto,’ Gwen sighed, looking more sympathetic than anything else. Toshiko looked utterly astonished, just like she had when she first saw Jack die and return to life. Owen was glaring at him and Jack was looking aside, seemingly unable to even look at him now.

‘Fuck! What, is immortality now some kind of Employee of the Month prize in this team?’ Owen growled. ‘Bloody Harkness... you’re contagious or something.’

‘I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,’ Jack breathed in response.

Ianto sat himself up and put his hand over Jack’s. ‘Don’t. I chose this.’ He fought to get to his feet, and Owen gave him a hand up. Ianto then outstretched his hand to Jack and waited to see if he would take it.

A moment of silence passed as Jack deliberated on what to do. Slowly he turned and looked up to Ianto, seeming more than a little lost. Eventually, he took the offered hand and was helped to his feet.

They all stood there for a moment, in the alleyway, assaulted by the wind and the smell of blood. Nobody seemed to know what to do, but Ianto kept his eyes fixed on Jack, trying to gauge his thoughts, trying to reassure him, even though he knew from the expression he wore that Jack had been completely blindsided. Understandably really.

‘Better get rid of these bodies,’ he suggested, lightly.

That broke the spell and the others pulled together to get the aliens safely out of the way and slung into the back of the SUV. It was all done in near silence and the ride back to the Hub was awkward, to say the least.

Ianto didn’t mind. He felt a strange sense of calm all the way which he supposed was a side effect of his unnatural resurrection, and not even Jack’s mood or all of the studious attempts not to be seen looking at him could dissuade it. They would come around to the fact that he just wasn’t who he used to be eventually. He had to allow them their surprise for now.

Quietly, the SUV was put to bed and Owen made Ianto submit to an extra examination before he was allowed to go. Nothing amiss was found. He was still just Ianto, since there wasn’t a test in the world that could possibly reveal that a person was stretched across all of space and time, more or less stuck in two places at once.

Jack waited for him to get clean and find some clothes. Then he sent the others home for the evening and called Ianto his office.

‘I don’t like this.’ Jack’s words were out before Ianto had even taken a seat.

He felt a little hurt at that. ‘You’d rather I died?’

‘No! No... of course not. I just... I don’t understand.’

‘It’s the link...’

‘You said that was fading.’

‘I...’ Ianto winced. ‘I tried to make it fade. It worked. I wasn’t lying. But... I can’t deny what we... what _I_ am,’ Ianto quickly corrected himself upon seeing Jack wince a little at the unintended pluralism. It wasn’t something he could help; he just didn’t feel accurate as an “I” anymore. He was two, living two realities at once, and there was just no way to describe the jointness of his decision making and duality of his perceptions. ‘Look, I know why you’re on edge about this. But I’m not like you. When I came back, it was by choice. I can decide. The day will come when I’ll make the decision not to return, I know. But let me promise you one thing; I’ll always choose this while you still have no choice.’

Jack studied him for a moment before, finally, the first signs of a smile appeared and crinkled the skin around his eyes. ‘That could be a long time.’

‘Time? Yes. It can seem so. Long, I mean.’ Of course, it was a little different being made of time than having to endure it, but Ianto chose not to get into all of that. Besides, there just weren’t words enough. ‘It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll stay with you.’

For a few minutes, or at least what seemed like that, Jack leaned back in his chair, staring into the ether thinking it through. ‘Maybe I don’t want you to.’

Ianto felt his heart pang and droop a little. Perhaps had been a little presumptuous to think that Jack would even want him around. It had been based mostly on accumulated evidence, and Ianto knew full well that scattered evidence didn’t always add up the way it was supposed to.

He closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out to his other self, needing the support. It was there, as always, like a cool and calming caress. Jack was saying something, something about what he meant, but he wasn’t hearing it. Ianto had to fight his own inclination not to let go and return to himself fully in order to come back and even that wasn’t entirely willing.

‘It’s alright, Sir,’ he said, aware that he sounded somewhat weary. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to me.’ Ianto cleared his throat and straightened his tie. ‘If that’s all, I need to start moving the bodies we picked up from the autopsy bay to the morgue.’

‘Leave them until tomorrow. You look tired, Ianto.’

Ianto didn’t feel all that tired but he conceded anyway. ‘Very well. I’ll be going then.’ He didn’t stop as Jack attempted to say something else, eager to get out before Jack asked him to stay the night, or, even worse, didn’t.

He shut down the base, methodically, and drove home on autopilot. The torn up and bloodstained clothes he had been wearing when he was shot were folded in a bag on his backseat, in the hopes that the suit at least could be rescued. If there was one thing he had learned from working at Torchwood, it was how to get rid of bloodstains. Usually, that wasn’t such a good thing. Tonight it was the best thing that had happened to him.

After putting the suit and tie into soak with some chemicals, he scratched around the cupboards to find a bite to eat. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much to be found. He just didn’t spend enough time at home to really shop much. Ianto ate some crackers and had a shot or two of whiskey; enough to loosen him up a little. Then he went to bed.

Sleep actually came easily to him, as it always seemed to now. His other self was a calming presence, like a lullaby, or a dreamcatcher, helping him drift away and apparently keeping any nightmares away. And that was another reason he could no longer deny the connection; it was too exhausting not having that safety net.

At some point, in the early hours of the morning, he awoke with a start, his heart pounding and his mouth dry.

Something was calling him. Something familiar.

At first he thought that somehow the Torchwood Three TARDIS had woken up and was reaching out to him again, but then he realised that the voice was different somehow. It was less demanding, less insistent and needy. He realised with a jolt that this one wasn’t actually calling out to him per se, but just calling out, for anyone to listen who could hear it.

Ianto checked his clock and groaned when he saw that it wasn’t even six in the morning yet. There was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep though, not with that din spreading through his mind like alarm bells. At least this time he was able to hold it back and compartmentalise it in his brain more. The need to help wasn’t going to take him over this time.

He got dressed in a hurry but still managed to look impeccable as he left his house and sped back to the epicentre of the cry; the Hub. The moment he parked up, he knew what it was.

Under the dawn shadow of the watertower, right on top of their perception filter, a blue box was parked. Even if he hadn’t have seen it several times before, he could sense immediately that it was another TARDIS. Now he was so close, he could hear it crying so loudly it made his teeth itch. But it seemed to quieten a little as he listened, apparently becoming aware of him.

Slowly he trod the pavement towards it, unable to take his eyes away. She, in turn, seemed to be looking right back at him, assessing him, trying to figure him out. Ianto gently placed a hand on the side of the box and she purred approvingly in response. At the moment he wasn’t able to decipher anything of what it was saying, since she wasn’t intentionally reaching out to him, as the other TARDIS had, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he grew to understand. Then, perhaps, he would be able to fix whatever was wrong.

‘Hey!’ A voice startled him and a man in a brown suit ran over towards him.

Ianto frowned at him, recognising him immediately as the Doctor. He saw Jack standing further along, under a tree, obviously having been speaking with him. Thankfully, he stayed where he was and didn’t approach either of them. Ianto could sense the TARDIS he was still connecting to was very on edge about him, willing him to stay away.

But that wasn’t why she was upset, though. No, it was something else. Something he was on the verge of grasping, if he just had more time to let his other self shine through and guide him.

‘Hey!’ The Doctor repeated. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Because he couldn’t resist, Ianto raised an eyebrow and him and smirked. ‘Sorry, Sir,’ he said, insincerely. ‘The Doctor, I presume?’

The man mirrored his raised eyebrow and stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘That’s me. And you are?’

‘Ianto Jones. I work for Jack, in Torchwood Three.’

The distain which filled the Doctor’s eyes at that wasn’t even concealed. He felt vaguely insect-like under that cold stare. Obviously that had been the wrong thing to say, big time.

‘Are you in need of assistance?’ Ianto asked, just to see if the Doctor would own up to his troubles with his ship. Time Lords were a stubborn sort, rarely acknowledging their own limitations, or at least that was what his vortex self thought.

‘No, just visiting,’ the Doctor said, the far more benign expression overtaking his face not quite reaching his eyes. ‘Let me see now, Ianto... are you his doctor or are you the receptionist?’

‘Receptionist,’ he said, smarting a little even if that was technically accurate.

‘Ah right. Jack didn’t give much of a description.’

And suddenly Ianto realised he was being sized up, not in a purely superior manner, but as a rival. There was actually a note of jealousy there, he knew it. ‘Nor of you actually.’

Again the Doctor looked right down at him, sort of smiling and frowning at the same time. ‘Well I was bound to stop by for a visit sooner or later, so there was probably no point,’ he said, bouncing on his heels a little. ‘Might not even have been in your lifetime, after all.’

Ianto resisted the urge to point out that the Doctor wasn’t actually there by choice, so that was a moot point, but that would have given the game away. The thing was, he would have been perfectly happy to have helped his stricken TARDIS, and was going to try and do just that before he’d come over, but Ianto didn’t like the way he was being looked down on. Although it wasn’t being explicitly said, he could tell the Doctor was subtly attempting to mark his territory with Jack, drawing attention to the fact that Ianto had neither the lifespan or the heroic job title to make him a viable long term companion for the Captain.

That was a joke. He wasn’t the one who saw Jack as a freakish mistake. He wasn’t prejudiced in his understanding of the universe and of time. He would never judge Jack for being different.

Remembering Jack was standing over by the tree, and knowing that he had to be getting anxious over them chatting like that, apart from him, Ianto stepped away from the blue box and walked over to him. The Doctor followed behind him and, even then, Ianto could feel his eyes burning holes into his back.

There were definitely some unresolved issues there. Ianto knew full well that the Doctor wasn’t the most stable character and he got the sense that the Time Lord was nursing a serious case of “if I can’t have him, nobody can” syndrome, probably without even knowing it.

Jack made some introductions, apparently not noticing the frostiness between the two men, and began to strike up some excited chatter, clearly overjoyed to have the Doctor there. All trace of the drama that had unfolded between himself and Ianto the previous evening seemed to have left his mind for the enthusiasm. Ianto wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not but decided not to complain.

Sure enough, the Doctor was quick to dismiss him with a request for tea and Ianto went down into the base by himself, guessing they would be following behind and getting comfortable, since he knew the Doctor was going to be grounded there for a while without his help. Of course he kept the link in his mind to the TARDIS open, not wishing to hear her suffer, still seeking to reassure her that as soon as he was able to understand what was wrong properly he would tell the Doctor what it was she wasn’t able to communicate to him. He wasn’t cruel enough to block her out completely. But it would have been easier with concentration and some time alone with her to let his vortex self come and do the talking. That would have to wait now.

He made the Doctor’s tea and Jack’s coffee with his usual precision, not about to let on that there’s anything remiss at all. Ianto served it, politely, and decided to spend some time down in the archives. There wasn’t a power in the universe which could have compelled him to hang around watching Jack make starry eyes at a man who didn’t even seem to see the need for any particular civility towards a person he deemed unnatural, despite the fact that Ianto had seen what Jack had gone through for him; seen him being used like some sort of human shield, sent to die over and over again for him with no shred of consideration or even thanks. At the end of the universe, on earth, or up in the skies above, it had always been the same, and no amount of rolling back time erased the truth.

Once truly alone, Ianto was able to put aside his irritation and anger at the Doctor, and the indecipherable buzz in his mind grew clearer. He could meditate and focus more clearly in the quiet solitude, touching the vortex and the TARDIS’ heart through it. The answer, when it came, was clear as a bell. Ianto knew exactly why she was so distressed.

In his mind, he saw how the Doctor had been struggling to control her movements, wondering what on earth was happening, and how she had clawed her way through time and space to get back to Cardiff. A lot of secrets were open to him but Ianto chose not to see too much. Just enough to understand. The TARDIS had gone into freefall and the Doctor had been powerless to stop her. Now he wasn’t listening. He never listened.

Frustration welled up inside him and he knew he was going to have to distance himself before he got too muddled and intertwined with all the emotions and memories that were not his own. It was hard however, now that the TARDIS was actively trying to hold onto him, a million little tendrils clutching onto him.

All of her desires came down to a single request which made his spine judder.

_Wake her._

That was what it was all about. The TARDIS remembered just as well as he what happened during the year. She remembered the other TARDIS that had, once, been set free, before Jack had reversed time.

She remembered not being the last of her kind.

The pull was so strong now she was irrevocably taking hold of him, even stronger than that of the other, weaker TARDIS that had partly taken hold of his mind while he had been in a vulnerable, confused state. But her demands were filled with emotion more than malice. They were tinged with desperation and an ambiguity that told him that she knew it would be a bad idea to have the other brought back to consciousness. It was unstable; a malign presence that had been buried in the earth for a reason. All she wanted was the loneliness of being the last to be gone and grief was a remorseless motivator.

Ianto held fast against her, doing everything he could to convince her that it could never be. He promised again, as he had before, to help. If anybody could help assuage what she was feeling it was him. Or rather, both hims.

So he gritted his teeth and went back up to the Hub, knowing he was going to have to put aside his inclination to punish the Doctor for his cruel treatment of Jack in order to do the right thing.

Owen, Gwen and Toshiko had come into work by this time and he found himself interrupting a merry band being entertained by dazzling stories from the Doctor, like children sitting around a teacher. Even Jack, mighty Jack, was utterly captivated.

He had no intention of interrupting them but Jack grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into the seat beside him, jovially. The Doctor didn’t skip a beat with his storytelling but the glint in his eye became noticeably sharper. Only Ianto noticed it.

‘You know, I rather like it here,’ the Doctor concluded his lively chatter. ‘Might stay a little while.’ He gave Jack a beaming smile which was returned in kind.

Finally, Ianto could stand it no longer. ‘That would be a given with your ship being so uncooperative, whether you really want to or not,’ ’ he muttered and all eyes fell upon him.

Jack leaned back to look at him, appearing somewhat horrified. His assessing him quickly became a look of realisation. ‘Don’t tell me you can hear that one too?’ he asked, almost at a whisper.

‘It’s different,’ he told him, quickly, knowing now how frightening it had been for Jack to watch him go through that the last time. ‘I promise.’

The Doctor scrutinised him for a long while before leaning back in his chair, his arms folded. ‘You know what’s wrong with the TARDIS,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

Ianto considered his options before deciding he couldn’t hide it any longer. He gave the Doctor a small nod and felt the anger welling up in him again as that superior, scrutinising gaze turned onto him, just as it had before when he’d first introduced himself.

‘How?’ the Doctor hissed.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I think it does.’

‘Well, you’re wrong,’ Ianto shot back, and then chuckled to himself as he realised what he’d said. ‘Oh sorry, no, that’s Jack isn’t it? He’s the wrong one.’

‘Ianto...’ Jack said, gently, putting a hand on his knee to silently tell him to back down.

‘Or maybe _I_ am,’ he said, shrugging Jack off and getting to his feet, moving towards the Time Lord in small, slow steps. ‘Neither of us fit into your narrow categories of what should and shouldn’t be.’

The Doctor got to his feet as well and squared up defensively, his glare now tinged with incomprehension.

‘What are you doing...?’ Tosh began to ask, but was shushed with a sharp wave of the hand by Ianto, made in the air without once taking his eyes off the alien man in his sights.

‘What’s wrong with my TARDIS?’

‘What do you see when you look at Jack?’ Ianto asked, deflecting the question. ‘What _exactly_ do you see?’

Piercing eyes flittered across to Jack and back again, narrowing with suspicion. ‘It’s not about what I see, it’s about what I feel.’

‘Correct. Feelings are not fact, Doctor. He is no more wrong than you or any of us are. He’s simply outside your comprehension. You shouldn’t fear him.’

‘I don’t...’ he began, but lowered his eyes momentarily, unable to say it. The Doctor looked back up at him like he was seeing Ianto for the first time. ‘Who are you?’

‘That’s not important. I just want you to see that your vision is too small to be able to judge Jack’s place in the universe and in time. Your feelings are irrelevant. I want to help you see him for who he really is. Not what you sense he is.’ Ianto turned to Jack, his eyes immediately softening, giving him a small smile as he looked on, perplexed. Even if Jack didn’t want him, he could at least help him get who he really did want, by pushing the Doctor - and his TARDIS too - to overcome their prejudices and accept him. He turned back to the Doctor with a clear purpose in his manner. ‘Come with me to your ship and I’ll show you what’s wrong with her.’

The Doctor hesitated and looked around at the other members of the Torchwood team, questioning them with his eyes. None of them had any answers; all just as surprised by Ianto’s outburst.

Ianto started towards the Hub entrance, walking along like he was on autopilot. He didn’t react even as Jack called after him and just kept going until he was all the way out of the base and walking back along the Plass towards the TARDIS.

She was quieter now she knew he was going to tell the Doctor what to do; calmer. That made him feel a little better for making her wait.

It wasn’t long before the Doctor came along, hands in his pockets, looking extremely dubious about the whole thing. ‘I asked Jack about you,’ he said as he approached. ‘He tied himself in knots and none of it made any sense. None of them know what to make of you, and they’re supposed to be your colleagues. So before we do this, I’d like for you to tell me exactly who you are.’

He couldn’t help the smirk which curled the corner of his lips. ‘I do believe I already introduced myself. My name is Ianto Jones, just as I said. I work for Jack at Torchwood Three.’

‘But you’re not human.’

‘No, I am.’ _Mostly. Kind of._ ‘This is a lesson I think you’d do well to take away with you, Time Lord,’ he said, channelling the other Ianto yet more. ‘You expect that because I’m just a human, one of however billion there are on this planet at this moment in time, I can’t possibly be anything more than you were expecting to find.’

‘Okay, I get it. Assumptions aren’t good.’

‘Always look past the chrysalis and look for the butterfly. I believe you knew to do that once. You seem to have forgotten over time.’ Ianto put a hand on the front panel of the TARDIS and she immediately unlocked and opened her door to them.

The Doctor looked completely confused again that he was able to do that, and then a bit miffed as he was invited into his own ship.

Inside, the ship seemed to be pulsing and heaving, her internal lights dimming in and out in dizzy distress. ‘I thought I must have fixed her wrong after...’ he winced and elected not to continue. Ianto sensed the answer anyway; after she was cannibalised into a paradox machine. ‘What am I missing?’

‘You’re missing her heart.’

‘Hm?’ the Doctor grunted and frowned, deeply.

‘Metaphorically.’ Ianto sighed, heavily, and over walked to the central power well, thinking for a moment how there was a small resemblance between this place and the Torchwood Three Hub, with the water tower and this TARDIS’ power console both spiked down the middle. He placed a hand on it and the TARDIS purred, the lights around them growing bolder somehow.

Ianto looked back to him and realised, from the look on the Doctor’s face, that the vortex flowing into and through him must be showing somehow, maybe in his eyes, maybe even through his skin. He held out his hand and waited for the Time Lord to contemplate the offering and then walk up to him and accept it.

The moment the connection to him was established on both sides, Ianto was able to link the Doctor and the TARDIS together as well. Flashes of memories from the year that was reversed appeared and, piece by piece, the TARDIS showed them both exactly why she was so distraught. She didn’t want to be the last. And as Ianto watched, he saw the Doctor holding onto another of his kind — Harold Saxon, or rather, the Master — begging with him to stay with him, all wrongs forgiven if only for the chance to no longer bear the burden of a near eternity alone. It was paralleled with the TARDIS pleading through the ether after time had reversed for the one other of her kind left in the universe, which she had been able to reach out to and sense in that year, to come back.

It revolved around like a spinning top, between them; all the emotions and desires and needs and fears, jumbling and sharpening the memories being shared. Ianto added his own to the mix, showing the Doctor and the TARDIS how he came to be what he was, why the other TARDIS could not be woken, and why Jack wasn’t and never could be wrong.

Gradually they came to themselves again and Ianto found himself on the floor, cradling the Time Lord as he wept for the Master once more, listening to the TARDIS as she withdrew and mourned in private. Finally, she understood. Ianto knew she would be able to go on now she had seen it all unfold through his eyes because she really did understand why he could not wake the other up again for her. Unexpectedly, he realised that she was not the one who really needed healing; the Doctor was.

He thought that perhaps he’d been too quick to judge him and wrong not to consider why he was the way he was. Why he was possessive towards Jack yet determined to push him away; it was his desperation not to be alone anymore warring with the experience of losing everybody sooner or later. Why he looked down on others; it was because nobody could reach inside him like one of his kind, and no matter how many times he saved this race and that race from destruction, it would never bring the Gallifreyans back.

Ianto decided to step back a little and let his vortex self shine through, wrapping the Doctor with memories of a time when there were many other Time Lords, all connected to each other, so strong it would feel like he wasn’t alone at all, at least for a little while. The Doctor could hear them in his mind and sense them completely as Ianto poured the sensation into all of the ragged cracks that had appeared in him over time. He wanted to make it unforgettable, so that if ever he felt alone again, the Doctor would always remember that feeling and find the strength to go on.

Eventually the Doctor seemed to lose consciousness, so Ianto reasserted himself through the power that had been flowing through him and used his last remaining strength to lay him out on the floor, making him as comfortable as possible. Then he made for the TARDIS’ door, wanting nothing more than to find somewhere private to fall down and sleep, his head completely pounding. He made it outside, but slid down the side of the police box and hit the concrete slab that normally constituted Torchwood Three’s emergency lift. At least he wouldn’t be seen by any passersby there, he thought, as his vision started gathering sparks.

Ianto felt utterly drained, but that was understandable. Humans weren’t supposed to act as communication conduits between wayward time beings, and although he knew the other Ianto would always hold him together, he was doomed to feel the aftershocks. He was still mere flesh and blood.

He was woken, not long later it seemed, by Owen kicking him lightly in the thigh. Ianto groaned out his pain.

‘Not dead then,’ Owen pronounced.

‘That medical degree was well worth it then, was it?’ Ianto huffed and struggled to sit himself up. Gwen and Tosh got either side of him and somehow managed to hoist him to his feet. Ianto peered out and caught sight of Jack waiting agitatedly at a distance. He waved him over a few times but Jack wouldn’t come.

‘Tosh, would you please go tell Jack that he’s fine to approach the TARDIS. Nothing will happen. Trust me.’

She nodded and went to relay the message. Jack clearly looked torn but eventually came back with her. He eyed the blue box all the way and looked relieved when nothing happened when he came near.

‘What happened?’ he asked, putting one hand on Ianto’s shoulder and the other on his cheek to lift his chin. ‘You look like crap.’

‘Flattery, Sir.’ Ianto rolled his eyes and then looked him in the eye, having to force himself to smile. ‘Go inside. The Doctor needs you.’

Jack didn’t need to be told twice. He went straight for the door and Ianto couldn’t help the sigh which escaped him. Gwen squeezed his shoulder a little and he turned his placid smile to her. Between the three of them, the rest of the Torchwood team were able to help Ianto back to the Tourist Centre and back down into the Hub. They helped him onto the couch, Owen even managing to produce a blanket and pillow for him (even if the glare that came with it warned him never to repeat that he’d ever fetched them and tucked him in), and he fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched down.

Of course, by the time he had woken up, Jack was gone. So was the TARDIS and the Doctor.

The team told him Jack had waited but he’d taken so long, past a day, to wake up, he’d had to go. He didn’t want to miss his chance to travel with the Doctor at last. Ianto closed his eyes and nodded, not saying a word about it, even if they all seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

He reached out to his other self, seeking word, even though he knew he shouldn’t ask, on whether he’d ever see Jack again. The answer was that not even the vortex knew. It could trace the path of every atom and molecule through every stage of its existence. But Jack? Nothing. He was just an empty space and neither his path, or the altered courses of all those he encountered, could ever be properly predicted now.

That was why he naturally felt so wrong to any being relying on those paths to navigate time and the universe. Destabilising factors always did.

It didn’t matter now though, not really. Ianto had given Jack what he’d always wanted and that felt good. He’d helped the Doctor too, and his TARDIS. He’d done good things.

So he told the team not to worry and relaxed back down. Gwen shrieked in his ears as blood starting rolling out of him and Owen tore his shirt away to find a hole in his stomach. It was a bulletwound.

Ianto wanted to tell them that he was just restoring time to the way it should have been, and dying as he was supposed to because he had given Jack what he wanted another way. He wasn’t going to be alone so now he could go. But he had no strength to speak.

He smiled though; smiled at them all in turn, and reached out to hold Toshiko’s trembling hand too for as long as he could. Then he allowed himself to wither away into a far deeper sleep, going to a place where he could hold onto the one remaining soul he knew he’d never be parted from; himself. 

There, Ianto stayed.


	3. The Dog and the Bone

The silence of the morgue seemed like it would stretch out forever, past all boundaries of perception, relentlessly going on and on.

Then footsteps came and broke it, thunderous and pounding so that they echoed all the way around the cavern.

Jack’s eyes flittered up only for a second before returning to the body on the tray hanging out of door 007. That had been the one reserved for Jack until he’d gone and proven that he was never going to be making good use of it. Apparently the team had thought it fitting that Ianto be placed there.

Whether that was an act of kindness or an intentional reminder that Jack was responsible for it coming into use, he couldn’t quite fathom.

The footsteps stopped as the Doctor came to a halt beside the body, on the opposite side to Jack. He stared down at it, expression completely unreadable except for the slight frown.

It had only been three days since he and Jack had left for Torchwood, but it had been a good six months for them. Neither of them had expected this and the stone cold shock had rendered them both speechless for a good long while. The Doctor had retreated to the TARDIS and Jack had hung back in his office for a while, trying to get up the courage to go see for himself.

The irony of it was, Ianto had been with them the whole time; the silent presence standing between the two men wherever they went. Neither of them had been quite able to escape their memories of him, although Jack had made more of a valiant stab at it than the Doctor in his constant pursuit of a closer relationship. They had both wordlessly been anticipating returning back and seeing him again, and making the presence a reality. Now they were back, there was only emptiness.

Ianto was dead. Cold and grey, his body packaged away into cold storage.

And it made no sense.

‘I want to bring him back,’ Jack said, breaking the deafening silence around them deliberately.

The Doctor blinked hard and gave him a searching stare.

‘I need to...’ he began and cleared his throat before continuing, ‘I need to find him. Tell him to come back again. He’s dead because he thought I didn’t...’ Jack swallowed and lowered his eyes.

‘Did you?’ the Doctor asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Jack’s head snapped up to him, and the Doctor pressed his lips closed. There were a lot of things he wanted to say to him, things he’d been holding in for six long months, but now wasn’t the right time. That would wait.

‘You think I didn’t want him because I wanted you more?’

‘I think you want a lot of things.’

A huff met that supposition. ‘Yeah well, right now one of those things is to look into the heart of the TARDIS. I want to find him.’

As Jack anticipated, the Doctor looked immediately horrified and ready to tell him just how ridiculous a notion that was.

‘Hear me out,’ he continued, quickly. ‘I once asked Ianto what I looked like to the vortex. What I was.’ Jack paused to blink back a stray tear, remembering lying in bed in the darkness, wrapped around Ianto, their fingers comfortably entwined, just talking through the night. ‘The gist of what he told me is that I’m a hole in time and space. The vortex can’t see into me or touch any part of me. It won’t be like it was with Rose because it won’t be able to take hold of me. I can look in but it can’t look back. I’m hoping I’ll be able to see inside far enough to find him, call him. Tell him... tell him he needs to come back.’

The Doctor looked aside with a heavy sigh.

‘Look, I know it’s risky, and I know you hate the idea...’

‘Do it,’ the Doctor said, suddenly, and couldn’t help but smile a little at Jack’s complete expression of shock that he was agreeing to that. Ordinarily, Jack would have been right. He wouldn’t ever consent to his meddling with something so potentially damaging to the entire universe. This was no ordinary person at stake though, and if there was a chance it meant Ianto would no longer be dead, he’d take it.

He watched Jack lovingly press a kiss to Ianto’s lips and stroke his cold cheek.

‘I’ll stay here in case it works,’ the Doctor said. ‘Just tell the TARDIS who this is for and she’ll open for you. She... she’ll want him back to I suspect.’

Jack nodded and made a run for the door, not stopping for him to change his mind. Once he’d gone and silence was restored, the Doctor turned back to Ianto and looked pained.

Letting Jack do that was stupid. Staying with Ianto when he really should stick close to Jack in case things went wrong and he had to sacrifice a regeneration again was stupid too. However, it fitted the disturbing pattern he had been noticing more and more as time went by.

He might be more than a little obsessed.

When he’d woken up in the TARDIS after Ianto had somehow reached into his mind and given him a few moments peace, he’d wanted to run as far as he could away from that place and never stop. He supposed it had been fear making him want to run. But Ianto was never far from his thoughts. When he looked at Jack, he didn’t see him as wrong anymore, but nor did he see him as his friend. Instead he saw someone who had been loved by Ianto and who had still left him behind. The Doctor thought he should be flattered that he’d done that for him. In fact, he had considered experimenting in reciprocating Jack’s obvious feelings for him. He couldn’t deny a twinge of desire at the thought, even if it was a distant one, well trained out of his system over centuries. The problem was, he didn’t want Jack like that, not really. There was only one name on his lips when he woke up in the night and he honestly didn’t know what he was feeling or why.

It wasn’t his style to mention any of this stuff aloud, of course. All Jack had seen of it was his moodiness and how much more of a chore going on seemed to become for him with each passing day. If Jack had known it was because he was longing to reach out and connect with Ianto again, the Doctor thought he might have been much less trusting than he was, even if he didn’t consider his attraction to be on a far more spiritual level than a prurient one.

A little tap in his pocket and his sonic screwdriver covertly overloaded the CCTV camera trained on him. When the red light fizzled out on it, he leaned over and kissed Ianto’s cold forehead, tenderly. It was so very wrong that this almighty being, this monster in a child’s body, could possibly be dead. He could almost believe that he was just sleeping, seeming so peaceful there, like the calm before a storm. The Doctor still didn’t really understand what Ianto really was or what he had done to him to open his eyes so profoundly, even for a short time. All he knew was, he needed him to be alive again. He just... needed him.

While he waited, Jack ran, not stopping to answer his team’s questions, not stopping even as he nearly bowled someone off their feet on the Plass. He went straight for the TARDIS and leapt inside, hitting the central console dead on. Jack wheezed out what he wanted to do, hoping the ship would understand him. For a few moments, he didn’t think it had. But then it opened up to him like a venus fly trap, flooding the place with light.

Jack took a moment to catch his breath, mentally preparing himself, before looking directly into the heart of the TARDIS; into the vortex itself.

He had to push and struggle against it to force himself into the light, and all the while he was calling out to Ianto, hoping against hope that he’d hear him and know what to do. But it was hard to keep control and all too soon he found himself spiralling into it, out of control, falling too fast.

Then something seemed to wrap around him and hold him steady. Everything slowed and he found himself floating in a place of white light, fire and what seemed like mirrors, reflecting him back as a black and empty outline of a man.

Whatever was holding him pulling back and the light and fire swirled in front of him to form a human shape. ‘What are you doing here?’ it asked, seemingly in his mind. ‘It is not for anyone to tread this way. Not even the universe’s greatest exception to every rule.’

If he hadn’t have been so frantic and more than a little frightened, he might have taken that description to heart. ‘I’m looking for someone.’

‘That much is obvious,’ it said and something in the way it was said, dry with a hint of wit, clued Jack in immediately.

‘Ianto? Is that you?’

‘Sort of.’

Jack tried to reach out and touch him but the distance was not what he thought it was. Even though he seemed so close, he was also an eternity away. ‘What’s that suppose to mean?’

‘This Ianto is not the one you seek.’

‘You’re not... oh.’ It became immediately obvious with that who he had found. ‘You’re the other Ianto. From the year I reversed.’

‘Your disappointment is profoundly flattering.’

‘Where’s my Ianto?’

The being flittered for a moment, like a bird’s wing and then reformed as it was before. ‘This Ianto was also your Ianto once. You did not return for this Ianto.’

‘I couldn’t. The Master...’

‘It is not a case of could and couldn’t. More of will and wouldn’t. Your will is not tied to us. You want another.’

‘No... yes, but...’

‘When we were young our father read stories to us, under a tree, beside a brook not far from our home. The stories of Aesop. Now that we are what we are, those stories inform the workings of the universe. Strange, really.’ The vortex-Ianto seemed to circle around him, yet stayed still at the same time. ‘There once was a dog with a treasured bone. But when he passed over a bridge and looked into the water, he caught sight of his reflection and believed he saw a better bone in the jaws of another. The dog dropped his bone in pursuit, only to find himself with neither. Do you understand?’

Jack tried to, if only to humour him, but it really didn’t make much sense to him in the context of what he wanted.

‘Reflections can be false. You see what you desire and misjudge what is real. That is why you have lost that which you treasured.’

Finally the penny dropped. ‘You’re saying I’m the dog and I’ve lost Ianto for going after the Doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t accept that. It’s a false analogy and you know it. I want him back. I know you can send him back. You did it before.’

‘We did.’

‘Right. Then do it again.’

‘That’s not possible.’

A vein of nervousness passed through Jack and he forced it down, determined not to back down on this. ‘Why?’

‘We cannot die. We cannot differ in this. But he at least can rest. He is resting.’

‘Then wake him up,’ he snapped, getting exasperated.

‘Not here. It was not safe for two of one kind to be so close for too long. He is resting in the darkness. It’s beyond my power to call him back. The vortex cannot tread there.’

Jack stared at him, the strange formation of a man he knew, yet not, trying to comprehend. ‘In the darkness? You mean that place I always go to when I get killed?’

‘It is the natural place for the dead. Or perhaps we should say, the resting. He cannot be reached there by the vortex. We are sorry.’ He took a step forwards and the fire and light formed into something more solid; almost human. Jack finally saw Ianto standing before him. ‘Understand our nature, Jack. He is more human, I more vortex, but we are unique souls. I may go into your world through him exactly as he may enter the vortex through me. We are always connected. Always one in two.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re saying,’ Jack admitted.

‘I was once your Ianto. Before you left us.... me.’

Finally, he got it. ‘Oh. You... you want to come back instead?’ He didn’t know why he sounded so deflated. This was Ianto too, and he knew it was, but Jack couldn’t escape the feeling that it just wouldn’t be the same.

‘That at least is within my power. To stretch. We desire that you are never alone. And... we desire to teach you about reflections.’

Jack shrugged. He wasn’t really sure what to say, because he was torn in half trying to decide if he could settle for what would be, to him at least, a different Ianto than the one he wanted back. ‘Well ah...’ he replied, hesitantly, really not sure if it was a good idea or not, ‘if you’re all I have left of him...’

Suddenly, he felt like he’d been dropped on a bungee chord and was springshot back upwards. Everything became a blur and he flailed and shouted, not sure where he was or how to regain control. There was an explosion and he found himself being catapulted across the TARDIS, landing in a twitching heap on the floor.

Every part of his body was aching but he didn’t have time to listen to the pain. He headed straight out of the door and broke into a limping run back across the Plass.

***

The Doctor gasped as he thought he saw the dead body before him jolt. For a few moments, he thought he had imagined it. He pressed the body and found it as cold and unmoving as before, and cursed himself for being so stupid.

Then it twitched again and this time he was sure. ‘Ianto?’ he asked, anxiously, leaning over him.

Suddenly, he was blinded as a burst of light, more powerful than any sun he had looked into or any star he had brushed by, burst into the room. The Doctor shielded his eyes and stumbled back, completely blinded. He stumbled around, not sure where to go or what to do. There was no way to open his eyes, it was so incredibly bright.

He slid on his feet and then slipped over onto one knee, clumsily. Something warm slid into his hand and the light was gone. The Doctor squinted his eyes open, his vision swimming all over the place, and saw Ianto leaning over him.

The Doctor gasped and then laughed with sheer disbelief . ‘He did it. I don’t believe it!’ He pulled Ianto down to his knees as well and put his arms around him. Without thinking about it he held his face in his hands and kissed his forehead again, overcome with a giddy kind of joy which nearly made him cry.

Ianto clung on and leaned in, resting his head on his shoulder. ‘Doctor,’ he sighed.

After a long few moments just enjoying holding Ianto in his arms, marvelling at how warm and soft and alive he now was, the Doctor felt eyes on him and turned to see Jack in the doorway of the morgue, looking in a way which could only be described as jealous.

‘You did it,’ he said, dumbly, smiling against Jack’s suspicious glare. He tried to pull away but Ianto wasn’t going let him go.

Jack walked the line towards them, his gaze indelibly fixed on the Doctor with a sternness that made his eyes look sharp. ‘Ianto?’ he asked, kneeling down beside them.

His head turned a little but he didn’t open his eyes once.

‘Ianto, it’s me. Look at me.’

‘I am looking at you,’ he replied, calmly.

‘Uh, well, your eyes aren’t open, so...’

Ianto frowned and slowly, very slowly, opened them up. ‘I forgot,’ he muttered. ‘I forgot what it is to be this way. We are... so small.’

Jack pulled back a little, warily. He knew that technically, there should be little difference between this Ianto and the one he had known, but he still felt like he wanted to pull away from him. The eyes looking at him were too distant, too shiny; looking through him instead of at him - almost exactly the way Ianto had looked at him when he’d been too closely connected to the vortex by the Torchwood Three TARDIS. Just... strange.

He got to his feet and stood over them, arms folded, making it abundantly clear that he wanted them stand up too. When the Doctor didn’t seem to notice, being too busy staring at Ianto, he cleared his throat and glared. Only then did the Time Lord see him and carefully prise himself away to help Ianto to his feet.

‘Okay Doc,’ Jack said, putting his hand on his shoulder to pull him aside to speak privately, ‘I need to tell you something. That’s not Ianto.’

‘Hm?’

‘Not the Ianto you knew, I mean. I managed to see into the vortex and, well, I found... _him_. I mean, well...’ he rolled his eyes, knowing this was going to be complicated, ‘that’s the other Ianto. The one from the year we reversed.’

The Doctor squinted at him, eyes still swimming a bit, trying to make sense of what he was saying. ‘Uh, the one that got turned into vortex matter? But... that can’t be possible. I mean... surely the vortex can’t contain a living consciousness? It would be... well it would throw up so many questions even _my_ brain would start to hurt.’

‘Well I don’t know how it works. I just found this one and he said our Ianto can’t be reached now, so... so he said he’d come back instead.’ Jack sighed, glancing over at him while he inspected his morgue smock, speaking quietly in the hopes of not being overheard. ‘I don’t know if I made the right choice letting him.’

Ianto climbed up onto the morgue tray and sat down. ‘My feet are cold,’ he said, by way of explanation as they looked over to him, hearing the clatter.

‘It is rather cold here,’ the Doctor said. ‘Jack, go get some clothes for him before he freezes.’

Jack looked between the Doctor and Ianto, a sulky expression overtaking him. He quite obviously didn’t want to be the one to go and fetch them, not wanting to leave them alone together. In the end he relented without putting up a fight and went to do as the Doctor requested.

After waiting for him to leave and taking a moment to be sure he was really gone, the Doctor stepped towards Ianto and gave him a curious stare. Ianto returned a patient smile, as though somewhat amused by the scrutiny.

‘I’ve been wanting to see you for a long time,’ the Doctor admitted, eventually. ‘The other you, I mean.’

‘We are the same.’

‘Right.’ He sounded somewhat sceptical about that.

‘I touched your heart that day we helped you and your ship, just as he did.’ Ianto reached out to take hold of his hand again and the Doctor didn’t stop him. ‘Perhaps more.’

‘I didn’t really think it was possible... to talk to you, like you’re... I thought, being absorbed into the vortex would, I don’t know, cancel you out...’

‘That would be logical. It is not the way it works, however.’ Ianto used the hand he had clasped to pull him a little closer and placed his other hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, like he was anchoring him. ‘The vortex gave birth to itself and all of time and space because it was conscious. It desired that it would be thus. And it desired because it was conscious because we were it. That is the simplest explanation I can think of.’

There was something almost hypnotic about his voice, the Doctor found himself swaying on his feet a little, staring into his fathomless eyes, trying to make sense of his words. ‘Simple?’ he chuckled.

‘I know you’re drawn to me,’ Ianto continued. ‘It’s a trait of your kind.’

‘Is it now?’

‘Well... not all. Some we inspire, some we defeat, some we frighten. Most run away or simply lose their minds. Not you. You’ve longed for us since you were a child. That is what you have been feeling, Doctor. Only that, I promise.’

The Doctor nodded, remembering the day he had been made to look into the heart of time itself as a child. He had seen chaos; a chaos he had longed to fix, if only he could reach in. He’d spent his entire life trying to put the universe back together again and turn the chaos into peace. ‘So it was never Ianto I wanted. It was you, whoever you are.’

‘Yes.’ Ianto cupped the Doctor’s face in his hands. ‘Mostly,’ he sighed. ‘Oh, but you’re beautiful through her eyes.’

‘Mm?’

For a moment, it really did seem as though Ianto was about to kiss him and he felt tingles going through his spine at the thought. But before he came close enough, Ianto pulled back and looked aside, his smile turning sad. ‘Nothing,’ he said and made a visible effort to appear contented again.

‘No, tell me what that meant?’ the Doctor pressed him, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. _He said “her”,_ he thought and wondered about it.

Ianto stared into his eyes, intently. ‘You’ve already guessed.’

He pursed his lips to say her name but the word didn’t come out. Instead it reverberated around his mind like it was an echo in a cavern. _Rose._

‘A fragment of her remains with us. It always will. Her love for you, and for Jack, will never die.’ Ianto started to grin. ‘Why else would you escape certain destruction so many times? There is, as you know, no such thing as luck.’

‘I...’ the Doctor began, and cleared his throat in indecision, ‘I don’t know what to...’

‘No need to say anything. Just understand. You and Jack, you were loved before you were born, you were loved every day after, and will be loved forever. By us. By me and by the spark she left behind within us. Even our human selves felt it; knew it was inevitable the moment we met you both.’ Again, Ianto chuckled, seeming more human and less ethereal for it. ‘You look like I’ve just poked you in the eye with a fork. Was that too much information?’

‘No um...’ the Doctor blagged, ruffling the hair on the back of his head with his hand, clearly resisting the urge to start pacing back and forth across the room.

‘To coin a phrase, the first time they tell you that the Earth's turning, you just can't believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. This is like that.’

That chimed with the Time Lord and made him sigh. ‘I said that to her, the day we first met.’

‘Exactly.’

The Doctor shook his head and looked at him, really looked at him, like he was seeing him for the first time. Slowly, he started to smile, and then grin, in that devilish, boyish way of his. ‘I think I’m going to like knowing you. You make my head hurt.’

‘Can I help it if all existence is a complete and utter paradox?’

A pause. ‘That did it too.’

‘Maybe I’ll stop talking now, then.’ He snorted and then shivered.

‘Still cold?’

Ianto nodded, shyly and seemed impressed when the Doctor removed his jacket and put it around his shoulders. ‘Thanks.’

Their grins broadened and they stared at each other, until the sound of someone clearing their throat drew both of their attentions aside.

Jack had returned, and the rest of the Torchwood team had followed him down. They looked on for a moment, the silence acute, before Tosh broke into a run and grabbed Ianto in a hug. Gwen and Owen followed and soon the morgue was filled with excited, babbling chatter, warnings about scaring them and various other conversations revolving around their incredulity.

Seeing Jack dump the clothes and hang back, the Doctor stepped back from the rabble and went towards him. He felt like he needed to explain, even if he wasn’t entirely sure he understood it all himself. Jack frowned at him and then walked out, leaving him to run along next to him.

‘Something I don’t understand,’ Jack said, as they half walked, half jogged along together down the corridor. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but, why are you so happy he’s back? You’re... you were all over him. Last time I checked, you and the other him weren’t exactly the best of friends.’

‘It’s... complicated,’ the Doctor conceded. ‘When I last came here, we had a moment of sorts.’

‘You mean when you and Ianto disappeared off inside the TARDIS and then I found you out cold?’

‘He... opened my eyes. To you; why I shouldn’t see you as wrong. To me... all the things I had forgotten to be. To him as well. Especially him. Well, not the human him, the other him. The one you’ve brought back... Oh for goodness’ sake, could we rename them or something? Ianto one and Ianto two? No?’ Getting a bit irritated at having to play catch up, the Doctor held him still by the shoulders, forcing Jack to listen and respond. ‘Look, it’s not what you think. At all. I’m not entirely able to explain it but trust me, it’s nothing like you’re thinking. Kind of a Time Lord meeting vortex issue we need to resolve.’

Jack raised an eyebrow and then smiled his far too infrequently used coy smile. ‘I’m overreacting aren’t I?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ He couldn’t entirely say that he was, since Jack didn’t know just how much and how long he had been pining for Ianto. Indeed, the Doctor was beginning to think it might be best not to share that nugget of information with him since he obviously wouldn’t take it well. ‘You’re still my favourite,’ he added, hastily.

‘Am I now?’

Knowing that tone all too well, the Doctor shuffled back and gave him the old mock-glare. Jack shrugged and backed off, amicably, and for a moment the Doctor regretted his reaction. All said and done, he did like the attention. He couldn’t deny that anymore, even to himself. But now Jack was wise to his inability to act on that the attention given was much less insistent and therefore much less satisfying.

He sighed as Jack turned back towards the morgue and ruffled his hair with his hand in agitation. Relationships weren’t supposed to be this complicated. Or then again, maybe they were, and he’d just forgotten over all the years of avoiding them.

***

It quickly became very clear to Jack just how different this Ianto was to the one they had known. He felt no ease or comfort in his presence, even if sometimes the things he said were pure Ianto; things which made him laugh and tingle. The problem was his eyes. He always looked through Jack rather than at him and it was a constant reminder, as if he needed one, that he wasn’t normal by the standards of universal constants. Not only that, he seemed to spend most of his time watching mundane things, for no apparent reason. Jack only discovered what that was about after Toshiko had asked him and found out that he was watching molecules interacting. She didn’t get it at all, unsurprisingly. Jack barely understood himself.

The change was most confusing to the team. They had no real conception of why Ianto had changed in the first place. In destroying the miniature paradox machine Ianto had created, they had reversed time to a point before they had seen him go nuts collecting random objects and wiring them all together, and before the incident where he turned the water tower to dust in the blink of an eye. So far as they knew, the weirdness had begun when Ianto had first woken up from the dead after being shot; and they were still pressing Jack for answers on that one, let alone this second time. All of them, even Tosh, seemed to be as uncomfortable around him as Jack was. Nobody really wanted to say it, but they knew he wasn’t Ianto — the Ianto they knew. But Jack didn’t even know where to start to explain it all to them, so he didn’t.

In fact, the only one who didn’t seem weirded out by him was the Doctor. And wasn’t that just a whole other barrel of _what the fuck?_ Of course, Jack still didn’t know what had happened when Ianto had helped the Doctor fix his TARDIS, or why he’d suddenly been able to go near the ship without her freaking out and sending them hurtling through time, or even why he’d found the Doctor out cold on the floor when he’d gone inside again. He thought he’d probably never understand what happened there. Obviously it had been something major because Jack hadn’t seen the Doctor so obviously awed and so terribly attentive since Rose, and that really was a kick in the teeth. He’d never looked at him like that, not once. It wasn’t remotely fair.

Obviously, that had nothing to do with his reasoning for following them up onto the roof of the Millennium Centre though. Not at all. He had a perfectly legitimate reason for that, even if it didn’t quite extend to his crouching back behind the ridge where they couldn’t see him, listening in.

‘Wait, you’re saying there’s more than one vortex?’ the Doctor was asking as he got close enough to hear, with a touch of incredulity in his voice.

‘There are many. Many realities too. But this one is the only one contaminated with consciousness.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Why else would it have spread so far across this universe? No other universes are like this. Only ours has life.’

The Doctor huffed in surprise and leaned back a little further on his coat, looking up at the stars with a smile. ‘Fantastic.’

Ianto chuckled. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you about all of that though. Your headache can’t be improving.’

‘No but I’m getting used to it.’

‘It won’t be for much longer.’

That made Jack prick his ears up and the Doctor seemed equally intrigued. ‘Oh?’

‘I’ll be leaving soon.’

‘What? Why? Where?’ the Doctor asked, quickly.

‘Too eager to be the way I was, I forgot that it is impossible to go back. I can never be what I used to be. I can never be just a human being. To Jack, I’m a shadow of the other Ianto. To you, I’m a shadow of Rose...’

‘Hey, that’s not...’

‘It is true. And you’re not incorrect. I am both those things.’

‘Look, I know it’s a factor but it’s not the only thing. Even when I was travelling with Jack after... you were all I could think about. And I don’t mean the other, human Ianto... I mean you. It’s not just because I can sense her in you.’

Ianto nodded but his saddened expression didn’t change as he looked aside at him. ‘We already discussed why that is.’

‘I know but...’

‘I promise you, that’s all it is.’ He sighed and shuffled closer to the Doctor, leaning into him as an arm extended around his back. ‘I came here to teach Jack about reflections. But you need the lesson as well I think.’

‘What lesson is that?’

‘None of us are completed as one. We all have our opposites. And our opposites are our completion. Jack doesn’t understand that you and he are the same. You’re not each others’ completion and never can be.’

Jack winced a little but in his heart of hearts, he had to concede the point. He’d always wanted the Doctor; saw him as the unifying presence he so desperately needed. He knew now that he had been wrong to think that. Perhaps they would be fantastic in bed, and Jack still wanted desperately to give that a go, but it wouldn’t be a case of feeling whole and complete together. They were both too frenetic and the Doctor was not the be all and end all he’d built him up to be in his mind over a century of hanging around, waiting for him. Jack supposed he needed someone calm and quiet and centred to provide the grounding he so desperately needed. Someone like...

‘That’s our role I’m afraid. W ell, human-Ianto’s role really now,’ Ianto continued. Nearby, Jack closed his eyes and bore the waves of pain that hit him at hearing that, because he’d always known and always fought against it.

‘Then I’m sorry he’s dead. For Jack’s sake.’

‘No. Not dead. It’s a law of universal balance. Let’s just say, it was not entirely Rose’s will which made Jack the way he is. It was an inevitability. To be honest, it was her will _because_ it was so inevitable.’

‘And... yep, my headache is flaring up again,’ the Doctor said and rubbed his forehead for effect.

‘It’s complicated, of course. But what I mean is, we are all like coins at the end of the day. You can’t remove the head and keep the tails because it’s not a coin without either. The same thing applies. I can’t die so Jack can’t die.’ Ianto’s expression turned very serious and the Doctor seemed captivated by it. ‘Just as your other half can’t die without you. The universe will conspire to ensure that.’

For a long moment, the Doctor stared at him, frowning. ‘Rose...?’

‘Not her.’

He shook his head a little, ruffling his hair once more. ‘Who?’

‘All opposites are of different means and measures. Jack and I are opposite in nature but we share many traits, and we share love. It does not follow that you and yours are the same.’

‘Uh... still lost here.’

The seriousness dissolved into a smile. ‘It’s not important. I believe you know in your heart who it is, as painful as it is for you to admit it to yourself. But enough of that.’

He pulled free of the Doctor and got to his feet. Then he turned around and looked straight at Jack. At first, Jack shrank back, but he knew he was rumbled and there wasn’t much use in pretending otherwise. He sheepishly got to his feet and brushed himself down, doing his best to ignore the disapproving look from the Doctor at his eavesdropping.

‘Do you understand about reflections now, Jack?’ There was so much wisdom in his voice, he was almost hypnotic.

Before he knew it, Jack had stepped forward and was holding him in his arms, nodding. Ianto leaned in, hard, like he had been starved of affection for a long time, trying to make the moment last, but then pulled away and stepped back with haste. There were tears on his cheeks.

‘Why are you crying?’ Jack asked, breathlessly.

He touched his fingers to his cheek, seeming surprised. ‘I didn’t realise,’ he said and wiped them away with his sleeve. ‘A lifetime ago, I remember watching you run away from me. I remember being trapped in the Hub, watching the world burn, longing for you. I remember my mind being twisted for want of seeing you, and gladly burning every atom in my body away in the hope of having the power to do that. It was always all for you. But learned more than I ever could have dreamed, Jack. And I know how things are supposed to be.’ Ianto stepped forwards and kissed him, gently. ‘It’s beyond my power to bring your Ianto back,’ he whispered in his ear. ‘But it’s not beyond yours.’

Jack looked into his eyes, even though they weren’t exactly looking back at him the way he wanted to, and held onto his arms tightly. ‘What do I need to do?’

‘Die.’

‘Wh... what?’

‘He’s there in the void. You’re the only one able to go there and return. Tell him everything you’ve learned. Tell him you want him back and he will come. When he begins the journey back, we will become as we were before and the vortex will give him the strength to return to life.’

Jack turned aside and looked out across the sparkling night sky, then down to the edge of the Millennium Centre.

The Doctor obviously saw and circled around to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Jack...’ he began, but couldn’t seem to find the words to continue.

‘If that’s what I have to do, then I’ll do it,’ he said, quietly, knowing the message would get through.

‘Then I must say goodbye.’

‘Hold on,’ the Doctor said, grabbing onto him and spinning him around. ‘You... you shouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself... it’s not... it’s not fair...’

Ianto smiled and put his hands on his face to kiss him, feeling the spark of Rose that was still fused into him shine through him as he did. ‘You know it’s the way it has to be. You need to let her go.’

‘But...’ he started and then sighed in defeat. ‘I’ve enjoyed our time together. You’ve shown me things I could never have imagined. For a Time Lord, that’s a rare gift. I think I’m going to miss you.’

‘If you’ll forgive the cliché, you know I’ll always be with you in one form or another.’

‘No more headaches. It won’t be the same.’

Ianto grinned at him. Then he turned around to Jack. ‘Time to go,’ he said.

Jack nodded and tried to smile. As much as he wanted his Ianto back, he still felt bad for this version of him and wished it didn’t have to be a case of losing one for the other. He watched, completely still as Ianto slowly closed his eyes, grew limp and fell back, right into the Doctor’s arms.

Once certain the body was now vacant, he took a deep breath and made a dash to the side, running for all he was worth to launch himself off, into the air, and down onto the pavement below.

***

He awoke, as he always did, with a sense of fuzziness in his mind. All his recollections were vague and his body felt cold and strange. Jack always knew when he’d been dead, even if it was always difficult to hold onto the memory of actually being there, in the darkness, with the waiting moving something and all the sleeping souls, seeing them yet not being able to join them all the way.

But there was something warm against him, nestled into his side. Jack blinked a few times and looked to find a mop of curly back hair and a familiar hand on his chest. ‘Ianto?’

Ianto pulled up a little to be able to see him. There were tears all over his face and he was clinging onto him, tightly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for finding me... wanting me.’

It all came back to him in a flash - running through the darkness, calling to him, pleading with him, finding him and - ‘Ianto!’ he gasped and kissed him, passionately, unable to stop, clinging on just as tightly. It didn’t matter that they were lying on the cold pavement, in the dark of an alley, frozen to the bone, he was there in his arms. Alive.

And finally, it all felt right. Jack knew then and there that Ianto really was his reflection; his opposite and his completion. It buzzed right through him and he sensed that Ianto knew it too. Perhaps he had known it all along.

Vaguely, he became aware of eyes on them, and looked across to see the Doctor standing some way along the alley, hands digging into his pockets, his coat billowing out behind him with the wind. Jack knew the expression; the coldness in his eyes that came with the loneliness he could never seem to be rid of. He understood it really. For whatever reason, the Doctor had felt something for the other Ianto, and he’d lost him. Just like everybody else he’d ever felt something for.

The Doctor gave Jack a small, silent nod and then turned and walked away, back towards the Plass. Jack knew he was leaving and, for the first time, he had no urge to run after him, begging for him to take him with him.

He had Ianto back and finally, he was happy.


	4. The North Wind and the Sun

That night, the Doctor dreamt of his first kiss.  
  
It had happened two days after he’d looked into the Untempered Schism, discovered the name destiny had assigned him, and thus graduated from Time Peer to Time Lord.  
  
He’d been sitting in the tree range, cooling his heels in an artificial brook, under a nice canopy of leaves, hot after running around with his friends. With that tiny glimpse of his future firmly in mind, he had been playing a literal sort of doctor with a great deal of enthusiasm for most of the day. But now the light was dimming, most of his friends had gone home or back to the academy, and he had been left alone with his thoughts.  
  
Almost. A familiar tingle had stung him in the neck and made him swing around to see who was there.  
  
He remembered a hand pressing into his arm, a cheeky smile, holding back as his friend leaned towards him strangely close, hearts beating wildly, warm and soft lips suddenly meeting his, the other boy laughing as he ran away through the trees...  
  
And then realising the Master had stolen his brand new sonic screwdriver.  
  
That moment was to set the tone of their relationship from then on.  
  
The Doctor woke up with a start and a little yelp. He blinked a few times, surprised to find that he’d fallen asleep in his chair. It had been a while since he’d done that.  
  
Then again, it had been a while since he’d been alone.  
  
Rose was forever lost to him, Martha had left of her own free will and so had Jack. Ianto too had slipped out of his grasp, like a flash of light he couldn’t ever have hoped to hold on to. He really was completely alone now.  
  
Not even...  
  
Quickly, he banished that stray thought from his mind. That was one name he wasn’t ever going to speak again and, for the safety of the universe, good riddance.  
  
The Doctor ran a hand though his ruffled hair and took a moment to breathe in deeply. His thoughts were turning towards what he wanted to do next, or where he wanted to go, but they were lost as he realised the TARDIS was starting to shake.  
  
He ran to the central console and made it just in time to grab on as the rumbling movement became violent, like she was doing somersaults through space and time. Every dial and light on his console started to flash and the monitor started to flicker sporadically.  
  
HELP  
  
It screamed at him in giant white letters against fuzzy, fritzing black.  
  
DOCTOR  
  
HELP  
  
PLEASE  
  
HELP  
  
‘Who... who’s doing that?’ he yelled over the din. ‘Who’s there?’  
  
HELP  
  
JACK  
  
PLEASE  
  
PLEASE  
  
PLEASE  
  
The last word got stuck on a loop, coming back and forth in a rhythmic pattern like a clock chime. He stared at it, trying to fathom how someone could be sending him a message through it. When he realised who it might possibly be, nerves rushed through him from head to toe. ‘Ianto?’ he tried. ‘I-is that you?’  
  
YES  
  
PLEASE  
  
COME  
  
HELP  
  
PLEASE  
  
CAN’T  
  
CAN’T  
  
CAN’T  
  
CAN’T  
  
‘Can’t what?’ the Doctor gasped. ‘Ianto, can’t what?’  
  
The monitor sparked and shut down, leaving him none the wiser. So he diverted his energy to holding on tightly and trying to get the TARDIS to follow the cry and take him back to the place and time they had just come from, post haste.  


  
***

  
The cheek that Gwen kissed, upon invitation, was rosy and pink and a little more stubbly than usual. ‘Good night?’ she asked.  
  
Jack laughed and whirled her around in the air. That was all the response she needed really, but Jack didn’t stop there. Next he grabbed Toshiko and made her dance, despite her flustered protestations, and ruffled his hand in Owen’s hair, despite his murderous looks of warning. Then he stood at the centre of the Hub and stretched, his body and everything that he was seeming able to fill the entire cavern for a split second.  
  
‘Ianto about then?’ Owen asked, grumpily. ‘I take it Creepy took you home then, huh? Great. As if I needed to feel any more nauseous this morning.’  
  
Jack happily ignored the mean spirited nickname Owen had conjured up. First of all, Ianto had been different recently, and neither he nor the others of his team would ever be able to understand why even if he did attempt to explain it. Creepy was as good a description as any, and one he couldn’t argue with because he’d felt a bit of it too with the other strange ethereal version of Ianto that had briefly been inhabiting the man’s body. Second of all, Owen was entirely correct that they had come to work together, having spent a long night doing what they did best together.  
  
And there was nothing, absolutely nothing on earth, with the power to affect his mood today.  
  
Then again, that was before the Doctor arrived; TARDIS literally spinning and turning the Hub into a chaotic mess before setting down, the man himself leaping out like he was on fire.  
  
‘Where’s Ianto?’ he asked the first person he collided with - Toshiko - frantically.  
  
‘Whoa whoa Doc,’ Jack said and moved to stop him. ‘Slow down. What’s up?’  
  
‘Where is he? Is he alright?’  
  
Jack looked at him oddly, but with concern. ‘He’s fine. Why? What’s going on? Doctor?’  
  
The Doctor caught his breath and made an effort to calm it down. ‘He’s alright,’ he muttered, as though reassuring himself. He took a moment to compose himself and then frowned, deeply. ‘Then why...? Huh.’ He eyed Jack up and down, oddly. ‘And so are you.’  
  
‘Right as rain.’ Jack flashed him a grin but it didn’t last long. ‘What? What happened?’  
  
Before an answer could be made, they were interrupted as Ianto arrived, hurriedly. ‘Is anybody down here actually watching the monitors...?’ he began, only to be halted in his tracks by the sight before him. ‘Doctor?’  
  
‘Ianto.’ The Doctor seemed about to run over to him but, aside from a small twitch in his direction, he stopped himself. ‘What’s happened?’  
  
‘Happened?’ Ianto shook himself out of the lapse of concentration brought on by the surprise of seeing the Doctor again, so out of the blue. ‘Oh, uh... giant slug.’  
  
‘Mmm?’  
  
Ianto ran across to Toshiko’s computer and reangled the cameras on the Plass. ‘I take it nobody was actually watching then. I heard shouting and peeked my head around the door to the office. Tourists are clearing away pretty quickly.’  
  
‘Ugh,’ Gwen said, now also seeing the slug in question. ‘Is it throwing up?’  
  
‘Mucus. Bloody marvellous,’ Owen sighed.  
  
Jack sagged a little. He hadn’t thought much could ruin his mood today but giant slug monster spewing phlegm was definitely something of a mood killer.  
  
‘Never mind that,’ the Doctor said, pulling Ianto aside a little, stiffly. ‘You called me.’  
  
‘Uh... no. I wouldn’t know how to do that, even if I had a good reason to.’  
  
‘The TARDIS... she went nuts. It was you, I know it was...’  
  
‘Whoa!’ Owen gasped, as a the giant slug managed to drench two people who were running away from it. ‘Gross or what? They’re gonna need a shower or two after that!’  
  
Ianto looked between the Doctor and the monitor. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m fine. We’re all fine. And I really need to go get some hazmat suits ready so we can take care of that slug before it makes the evening news.’  
  
The Doctor hesitated, but then stepped back to let him past. After a moment’s thought, he followed behind him to ask more questions, only to be presented with a hazmat suit himself.  
  
‘Please, wear this Sir. It’ll cut down on the drycleaning bill.’

***  


And so it was the Doctor ended up shoulder to shoulder with a group of Torchwood specialists, attempting to melt a rather ill tempered oversized slug with saltwater pumped from the bay, topped up somewhat with salt from storage.  
  
It took them more than an hour for the monster to be melted into a toxic, twitching puddle, and they were all exceptionally pleased to see it go. Even Gwen had no sympathy for it, thrash and whine though it did in the end.  
  
Owen was the one who called for Ianto to sort out the clean up operation, only find he was not standing guard on the perimeter of their hastily erected quarantine zone as he’d been told to. Curiosity piqued, he took a look around and spotted Ianto across the way, near the entrance to the Millennium Centre, apparently talking to a pedestrian. ‘Oi!’ he yelled, immediately irritated by what he was seeing, since Ianto had been supposed to get rid of all potential bystanders, not stand around chatting with them.  
  
‘What is he...?’ the Doctor muttered, and Jack turned to see what he was looking at.  
  
When he saw, Jack immediately ran over to Owen, instructing him to sort out the mess while he went to Ianto. Something in his gut was rumbling warnings, though he had no idea why.  
  
But something came to him as he went closer to them; a faint memory that otherwise might not ever have been stirred, of waking up some time in the middle of the night and seeing Ianto standing at the window, naked and blue from the moonlight, arms curved around his lean body, staring out at something and seeming troubled. Jack had rolled over and gone back to sleep and forgotten about it pretty much instantly.  
  
The expression he saw Ianto was wearing was exactly the same one as he’d held then. He seemed disturbed, concerned, dazed and perhaps even a little afraid. Jack looked at the pedestrian but couldn’t see much aside from a female shape and some golden locks tumbling out of the large swathe of red hooded cloak she was wearing, hiding her face. He noticed then, with some alarm, that Ianto and the woman weren’t even talking; just standing there, apparently staring at each other.  
  
‘Ianto?’ he asked.  
  
There was no answer. Not even a twitch to show that he had been heard.  
  
‘Ian...’ Jack started, and then came close enough to catch a glimpse of the woman’s mouth. Something seemed familiar about those red lips, but he couldn’t quite place them.  
  
When, after several seconds, neither of them had moved, Jack removed the glove of his suit and pulled back the woman’s hood.  
  
He actually flinched back when he saw who it was. Then he grabbed Ianto around the waist and pulled him back, as if she might harm him, as stupid as the action would have seemed to him if the gut instinct wasn’t sounding so many alarm bells.  
  
Lucy Saxon didn’t blink but she moved her head a little.  
  
‘Ianto?’ Jack asked, and shook him, breathing a deep sigh of relief as his eyes finally shifted to him. ‘What’s wrong? What’s she done to you?’  
  
‘Nothing,’ he said, quietly. ‘I just... I don’t know.’ Ianto frowned. ‘She’s been watching us. Since yesterday evening. I could... sense something. I didn’t know what it is. Not sure now.’  
  
Jack looked at Lucy, meaning to give her a hard glare, but didn’t manage that. She looked completely blank; pale and glassy eyed like a porcelain doll. Her beauty was entirely undiminished but something in her eyes, something terrible and vast, destroyed its power. It was the spectacle of a childlike innocence corrupted, perhaps. Or madness even. It was hard to say.  
  
The Doctor suddenly appeared at their shoulder. He was fighting his hazmat suit to try and get a hand inside to find his sonic screwdriver. ‘Stay back, Lucy. Don’t move,’ he said, and finally liberated his device.  
  
‘What are you doing here, Mrs Saxon?’ Jack barked at her.  
  
She looked between them both but didn’t respond. Jack felt Ianto trying to pull free of his grip to move towards her and held him back, determined not to let him take any risks. She might look dazed but he’d seen her kill before. He’d seen her stand by for a whole year as the earth burned and the Master destroyed everything in his path. Lucy Saxon was not remotely safe, or even stable.  
  
‘Jack, let me go,’ Ianto murmured, weakly.  
  
‘Not a chance.’  
  
‘Doc, would you take him?’ Jack asked, and passed him over.  
  
The Doctor pulled Ianto back and started walking away, more than a little disturbed by the way he kept glancing back at her.  
  
For a moment, Jack wavered over what to do. He didn’t exactly want to keep her around, but nor could he let the bitch go in good conscience. It was strange that she had decided to appear in Cardiff. Even stranger that, if Ianto was correct, she had been watching them. Stranger still that Ianto couldn't seem to take his eyes off her. All those things meant that it was certainly strange enough to warrant further investigation, no matter how much the sight of her made his skin crawl.  
  
Slowly, she lifted her hand and held it out to him, balled into a fist. He looked at her and at her hand, wondering what on earth she had. Obviously, it was something she meant to give to him.  
  
Her fingers creaked open. Jack leaned in a little, to see more clearly. As he did, her other hand took hold of his wrist and pressed his hand over the object in her palm. She turned their hands over, to transfer it to him, and then stepped back, eyes clouding over a little as she lowered her head.  
  
The Doctor felt a sudden jolt as Ianto suddenly collapsed in his arms, pressing his hands to his head like it was about to burst and trying to twist around to Jack. ‘Jack! No! Doctor! Doctor help! Help Jack! Please! Please!’  
  
His voice didn’t just seem to be coming from him, it seemed to be coming from everything; the sky, the air, the earth and everything inbetween was crying out and the Doctor felt it in every part of his body. He could sense the TARDIS spinning again and suddenly realised what had happened.  
  
This was Ianto’s cry; the one which had sent him into a freefall through time. He’d just arrived before it happened. It was massive and primal and the whole earth felt like it was trembling.  
  
The Doctor tried to move towards Jack, to see what was happening, but reality itself seemed to pummelling him back and forth somehow for being so close to him.  
  
Jack was looking at something in his hand, frowning a little. It was obvious, even from where they were, that his eyes were wide as saucers and his pupils blown like supernovas.  
  
The air between them began to pound. Rhythmic beats which made his spine tingle as they grew more and more cohesive.  
  
Drums.  
  
It was drums. Familiar drums.  
  
He watched Jack’s eyes slide closed and something else seem to take him over. The Captain held up what Lucy had given him, and the Doctor saw that it was something silver and thick. A ring.  
  
As if through a tunnel, he watched Jack put the ring onto his finger and sway on his feet. The moment it set in place, the sound of drums suddenly stopped.  
  
Then he heard laughter. In his ears. All around him. Insane laughter. Laughter... he knew. All too well.  
  
Reality went back to normal at last and he no longer felt like he was being crushed by Ianto’s sheer world-shattering terror.  
  
Overhead, the rain broke in waves. But the man it fell upon was not the one who had been standing there a moment ago. The eyes and sinister smile told that story effectively.  
  
‘No,’ Ianto moaned, pathetically. ‘Please no. Doctor...’  
  
In that moment he knew exactly why he’d been called so urgently.  
  
And why he had been dreaming certain dreams, as well.  
  
The team were moving in behind them now, disbelief in their faces. Someone was asking what the hell just happened. Another was calling Jack. One was moving for Ianto, asking him if he was alright.  
  
The Doctor grabbed Ianto’s gun from his holster, thankful that he hadn’t worn a hazmat, and aimed it at Jack. He emptied it into Jack’s body without blinking once.  
  
‘Tie him up and get him inside,’ he yelled at the team. Of course, they all just looked horrified and didn’t respond to his command. ‘Trust me, that’s not Jack. That’s not your leader. Now get him inside and lock him up before he recovers!’  
  
‘Do it,’ Ianto forced himself to say, though it clearly took a lot of effort. ‘Please! Hurry!’  
  
‘But...’ Gwen began.  
  
‘If there was ever a time to trust me... please, this is it!’ Ianto gasped.  
  
Owen ran over to Jack and managed to pull out some handcuffs to secure their dead leader’s hands behind his back. He then called for someone to help him carry him and grabbed onto a reluctant Gwen.  
  
‘Take Lucy too,’ the Doctor yelled, purposefully looking at Toshiko. Then he helped Ianto onto his feet and supported his weight as they hurried after them.  
  
‘Can’t... can’t... can’t... can’t... can’t...’ Ianto mumbled, breathlessly.  
  
‘Can’t what? Ianto, can’t what?’  
  
He suddenly keeled over, completely out cold. The Doctor immediately swung him up into his arms and carried him the rest of the way. 

  
***

  
Ianto’s eyes fluttered open and he winced at the lights of the Hub dangling over him. He sensed a presence beside him but wasn’t able to see who it was.  
  
The person flitted away and he heard voices, before a different presence moved to his side. By this time his eyes were adjusting and he was able to see who it was. ‘Doctor?’  
  
‘Hello there. Feeling better?’  
  
‘Uh... Maybe.’ He forced himself to sit up and held his throbbing head in his hands. ‘Sorry.’  
  
‘Don’t be. Just... tell me what’s going on. How...?’  
  
‘The Master!’ Ianto gasped, suddenly, as if he was putting together the events leading up to his unconsciousness and not liking what he saw. ‘Jack... oh god...’  
  
‘It’s alright, he’s contained,’ the Doctor said, trying to calm him, despite the fact that he wasn’t feeling all that calm about it himself. He was feeling like a man whose ground had been pulled out from under his feet and who couldn’t figure out if he was falling or flying.  
  
‘No.’ Ianto covered his eyes and seemed to be fighting off tears. ‘This isn’t happening.’  
  
‘Judging by suddenly changed accent and demeanor, I would have to disagree.’ He was going for levity and got nowhere close. ‘Do you know what that ring was? Where it came from? How...?’  
  
‘Yes.’ The response was quick and snappy. ‘It was... memories that weren’t mine, they zapped into me when I saw it. That’s what floored me. I couldn’t control them. It was like a waterfall on my head. Since the, uh, since my return the connection between me and the other Ianto has been kind of quiet. Then it was zero to a thousand in one second.’  
  
‘So the ring is, what? Something the other Ianto knows about then?’  
  
‘Something he was keeping from me before now.’  
  
The Doctor didn’t like the sound of that, and his expression testified to that.  
  
Ianto finally managed to get him into focus and frowned, deeply at him. ‘Wait, what are you doing here, Doctor?’  
  
‘You called me.’  
  
‘I did?’ Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut against the splitting headache he was wrestling with.  
  
‘Gave me a bit of a scare, if I’m honest.’  
  
‘Oh. You already told me that, I think.’  
  
‘Yes,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘I think you’re in shock.’  
  
‘I knew something was going to happen,’ Ianto continued, distantly, thought processes still erratic. ‘Ever since you left, I’ve been sensing something. It was this. This was what I was sensing.’  
  
‘The ring?’  
  
‘I don’t exactly know why.’  
  
‘You said it was memories. From the other Ianto...’  
  
Ianto blinked and jolted a little. ‘Yes. Did I? Uh, yes. Memories... memories I didn’t have before, from the other Ianto. They slammed into me when I saw this ring. I’m not sure why.’ He gulped and had to covertly dry his eyes, finding it hard to keep controlled when not too long ago his whole world had exploded and turned on its head. ‘The ring is a remnant from the year that never was.’  
  
As he faltered, the Doctor squeezed his shoulder and stood up. ‘Cup of tea? Coffee?’  
  
‘That’s my job...’ Ianto tried to stand up.  
  
‘Sit down and catch your breath. I’ll get it.’  
  
‘Alright. Coffee, please. Black. Strong as possible. I think I need it.’  
  
The Doctor went to make the brew, a little dismayed to have to use his sonic screwdriver to get such a simple piece of technology working. He brought it back and smiled at the gratitude on Ianto’s face. ‘Now, start from the beginning. I need to know everything.’  
  
Ianto leaned back and sipped at his coffee. ‘The TARDIS, the Torchwood Three TARDIS I mean, when she got free she roamed the universe, she... wasn’t happy because she needed a Time Lord. It’s a basic need for any TARDIS I suppose. At that time, you were out of the picture and there was only one viable Time Lord around.’  
  
The Doctor’s eyes turned very dark, knowing exactly who he meant.  
  
‘I’m fuzzy on the details, but I think she sought him out at the end of the universe... found a way to communicate through the human, or should I say _Toclafane_ , technology he had... struck a deal. In exchange for his demands, he promised to join with her and travel with her. Make her life meaningful again.’  
  
‘Something tells me he didn’t exactly keep up his end of the bargain.’  
  
Ianto shook his head. ‘He was more interested in conquering Earth in the past than travelling around. Not much of a traveller like you, I guess. After she gave him what he wanted, he just cannibalised her for the paradox machine. But she escaped before he was able to take too much away.’  
  
‘So, what did he want?’  
  
‘There is only one thing the Master wanted more than to conquer the Earth and defeat you Doctor; immortality. This ring would have given it to him,’ he said, and then added, bitterly, ‘or perhaps I should say, has.’  
  
‘How?’ the Doctor asked, his voice caught midway between a gasp and a croak. He hadn’t had this much of a headache since chatting with the vortex Ianto.  
  
‘My other self made this ring. It’s... well, it’s Jack.’  
  
‘Uh... what?’  
  
‘That’s the part I don’t understand. Early in that missing year, he took all of the stray hairs, toenails, skin cells from him that were left in the Hub and time shifted their molecules to make that ring. The TARDIS offered it to the Master as a way of taking over Jack’s body, should he ever run out of regenerations. Essentially, it’s a means for him to live forever.’  
  
‘So he was going to keep Jack on ice and use him as a life raft when the time came?’  
  
‘Yes. But it makes no sense. Why make the ring in the first place? I don’t get it.’ He huffed and shrugged. ‘Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, the Master’s death was a set-up. Lucy, either her mind has been gone a long time or there never was one in the first place; she was and still is completely controlled by him. When she shot him, it was nothing more than his Plan B. To escape you. He transferred himself into this ring when she did that... and now she has brought it to Jack...’  
  
Stricken, the Doctor started to pace and scratch the back of his head. ‘Then we need to get that ring off him, right?’  
  
‘Uh... I don’t know. Maybe.’  
  
‘Maybe?’  
  
Ianto shrugged and rubbed his forehead, compulsively. ‘I don’t know if that will work or not. I just...’ He gasped out loud, as though the pain in his head was dragging the breath right out of him. ‘I can’t think.’  
  
No sooner had the words left his mouth had the Doctor hurried off. Ianto made an attempt to go after him but only made it so far as Owen’s desk, where he collapsed pathetically into the chair. He searched around and caught sight of Owen, Toshiko and Gwen in the conference room on the upper level and guessed they were probably having an unofficial team meeting about what had happened.  
  
That didn’t particularly bother him. It was a natural reaction; essentially they were cavorting with their designated number one enemy, who had also killed their leader, on the say so of their hired help. Ianto had no idea what they were making of it all, but thought it best to leave them be to figure out their consciences for themselves. They didn’t really matter anymore, anyway.  
  
Ianto logged into the computer and accessed the camera system to search the cells. First he found Lucy, on level 8, lying down on the bed of her cell, staring up at the ceiling unblinkingly. Next he found Jack — not Jack, never think of him as Jack — on level 9, sitting on the bed and staring into the handcuffs he had been fitted with. Slowly, his eyes flitted up to the camera and Ianto felt a shiver go all the way down his spine; it was a look that didn’t belong to Jack’s face. A smile too that made him want to scream out with anguish.  
  
When the Doctor appeared on the other side of the glass, Ianto put on his earpiece and tuned it into the signal. Then he sat back and watched, wondering what the Doctor was going to do.   


***

‘Hello Clarice.’  
  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’  
  
‘You never saw that one, then? Pity. You know, it’s amazing how much time you have on your hands once you’ve conquered a species. I took in quite a few human movies.’  
  
The accent was all wrong. The voice was Jack’s but the diction and manner of expression was completely foreign to him. The Doctor stared at him, looking past the façade, trying to see the man he knew almost as well as he knew himself, opening what he liked to think of as a sort of Time Lord third eye. It was surprisingly easy.  
  
The Master was certainly not hiding from him. More, radiating; as though he was indescribably proud of his achievement of managing to escape death, yet again. Had Ianto, the Ianto he mourned, the vortex entity, not seen fit to call him, the Doctor supposed if he would have sensed him all the same. He was just too proud not to boast.  
  
Yes, he would have known. The Master would have wanted him to know he was alive. That was just how their relationship worked.  
  
‘Conquering planets not exciting enough for you?’ he asked, lightly.  
  
‘It is so difficult to find exciting pastimes these days, is it not? Particularly given that we’re the last two of our kind.’ The Master stepped a little closer to the glass, coming more under the light. ‘I like this form, though. Handsome, don’t you think? Definite opportunities for excitement.’ He rubbed the chin that didn’t belong to him, smiling a smile that was more disconcerting than alluring.  
  
The Doctor shrugged. ‘I liked it better when it was Captain Harkness.’  
  
‘In that case, I’m sorry to disappoint. Although...’ he squinted his eyes a little and tilted his head, ‘I’m not so sure you are all that disappointed. Not really. Miss me did you? I have to admit, I did enjoy that tearful goodbye. Never knew you cared.’  
  
With a sigh and a shake of the head, the Doctor decided just to cut to the chase. ‘Take off the ring.’  
  
There was a pause and he sensed a moment of indecision within the Master.  
  
‘Certainly.’ He mimed doing that, but stopped before it was actually removed. ‘How unfortunate, it appears to be stuck.’ The words were issued as if in challenge.  
  
‘Take it off,’ the Doctor warned.  
  
‘Or what? What will you do to me if I don’t?’ Now, even now, his smile was fixed in place.  
  
The Doctor stepped closer, eyes darkening and growing narrow. But for the glass, they were almost nose to nose. Fleeting memories of all the humiliations suffered during their year on the Valiant; memories that could never be erased the way that time could be, circled around his mind alongside years of fights, battles and struggles.  
  
His first kiss, his first orgasm (tricked away by the Master during a weak moment), his first heartbreak (when the Master stole the heart of the first woman the Doctor had fallen for, just to get back at him). They were all given in the waging of it.  
  
This time, he wasn’t going to let it happen. The Master wasn’t going to win. Never again.  
  
He reached inside his jacket and took out his sonic screwdriver.  
  
‘What do you plan to do with that?’ the Master scoffed. ‘Tickle me with vibrations until I give in?’  
  
The Doctor merely smiled and pulled out the gun he still had in his pocket. He held them both up together. ‘If you don’t take off that ring, I’ll come in there and take it off you myself.’  
  
The Master looked between the two objects and then up at him, registering a modicum of seriousness at least. For once, he actually believed him.    


***  


Ianto hurried down to the cells as fast as he could, though it was like running through endless tunnels to his tired, shellshocked mind.  
  
By the time he got there, he was too late. He knew would be but it still floored him.  
  
The Doctor removed the ring from the lifeless hand of the Master and stepped outside, sealing the lock again with his sonic screwdriver.  
  
‘What have you done?’ Ianto asked, aware that he had sunk down onto his knees and was shaking a little.  
  
‘What I had to do.’ The Time Lord was studiously resisting eye contact. ‘You don’t know him like I do, Ianto. Everything is a game to him. There was no other way.’  
  
‘No other way that you’d enjoy so much?’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Nothing.’ Ianto rubbed his forehead again and began to feel strange sensations, like sparks shooting behind his eyes. He could sense the other Ianto reaching out to him, tendrils of energy and power suffusing his veins, soothing him in a way he badly needed. Calmness overcame him and he was able to see and breathe properly again, all pain gone.  
  
A laughter sounded and both he and the Doctor looked into the cell, to see the stolen body shaking with it. The Master laughed and laughed, like he’d heard the funniest joke in the world.  
  
The Doctor just gaped in shock, still holding the ring in his upturned hand.  
  
‘You can’t make a man take off his coat through cruelty,’ Ianto said, but it was a different voice altogether than the one that had preceded it. He sounded like the eye of a storm; both calm and fantastical all at once. ‘Let us help him.’ Ianto stood up and put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder; an action which finally made him tear his eyes away from the Master’s laughing gaze. ‘Let us help him, the way we helped you and your TARDIS. Open the door for me.’  
  
‘Are you sure...?’  
  
‘Trust us.’  
  
Not entirely understanding, yet sensing he needed to step back and give ground on this, the Doctor once again opened the cell door. He then backed away, watching Ianto kneel over the Master with a sense of the absurd at the situation. When the Master grabbed Ianto and rolled him over, he flinched but didn’t go so far as to run inside, even if that was the purpose of his initial twitch in that direction.  
  
The Master looked to the Doctor, grinned as if to challenge him yet again, and then kissed Ianto hard on the mouth. It made the Doctor’s heart drop in his chest and his fingers twitched for the gun. If there had been any bullets left, he probably would have actually grabbed it again.  
  
Ianto rolled the Master back over and pinned him down by the shoulders. The man inhabiting Jack’s body stared up, frowning, as though something had occurred that he hadn’t expected. The Doctor could sense his confusion.  
  
‘The drums... wh-where are they?’ the Master muttered slowly, clearly shocked. ‘I can’t hear them.’  
  
‘You’ll never them again,’ Ianto promised. He closed his eyes and kissed the Master, using the contact to establish a link into his mind.  
  
Years rolled past in memory form, from the day the Master had seen the edge of the vortex and lost his mind and on and on. Ianto let his other self take over, healing all of the cracks that had grown with every thrumming beat and pouring light into them; locking every act of anger, malice, hate and bitter-tinged love away within his mind.  
  
And Ianto suddenly came to know exactly why the ring had been made; it was for this purpose all along. It had been made as a gift for the Doctor, to be given in this moment, in this manner. The vortex Ianto had simply kept that to himself in order to preserve the linear timeline.  
  
Sneaky. Very sneaky, Ianto decided. But necessary nonetheless. He would have reacted quite differently had he already known that all of this was all going to happen, and that the Master’s escape plan had been entirely orchestrated. Not by the Master, but by the other Ianto Jones. It made sense to him too though, really.  
  
The Doctor needed the Master. Neither could die, not truly die, while the other lived. They had to be together, for the sake of universal balance, and for their own sakes. Just like him and Jack. Like a few others destined to be of great importance to the fabric of time. It was the universe’s way of coping with its problem children.  
  
‘Doctor,’ Ianto said and held his hand out towards the glass, invitingly, although he didn’t turn his head to look at him. ‘Doctor.’  
  
A number of reservations churned the Time Lord’s gut, yet he was sufficiently curious over what was happening to move to the door of the cell. He looked inside, trying to sense something, anything that could give him some sort of clue as to what was going on. The Master had suddenly become silent and distant to him. It was unnerving since he knew he was right there.  
  
‘Doctor,’ Ianto whispered again, and moved his hand a little, still holding it out to be taken.  
  
The Doctor stepped forwards and tentatively took it.  
  
When the rest of the team finally left their meeting and ran down to the cells to see what was going on, they found nothing to be as they expected.  
  
Ianto was standing outside of the cell, looking in, hands stuffed into his pockets. He looked distant but contented somehow. The Doctor was inside the cell, crouched on the floor in the corner, eyes closed, face peaceful. Jack, or at least the man inhabiting his body, was slotted against him, limbs tangled, sobbing into his chest and clinging onto him for dear life.  
  
‘What’s happened?’ Toshiko asked, Ianto.  
  
‘What are they doing?’ Gwen asked almost at the same time.  
  
Without a word spoken in answer, he gave them all a sly smile before turning and walking away.   


***

They had sat in silence for a long time. Hours at least, and maybe even longer than that. The Doctor gently stroked the Master’s hair, thinking how much more like the boy he’d befriended and even looked up to before he’d seen into the Untempered Schism he seemed now.  
  
And while the Doctor contemplated this, the Master continued to cling onto him, enjoying a peace and quiet he could never remember even being able to imagine before.  
  
‘What do we do now?’ they both suddenly asked, in perfect unison, and then laughed.  
  
‘That was eerie,’ the Doctor said.  
  
‘Remember, the first day I met you, we did the same thing. Different words of course.’  
  
‘Ah yes. The words were “my toy”, and they were delivered in a far more petulant tone. Kids, eh.’  
  
The Master squeezed his hand a little. ‘Oh yes. I had forgotten. My mind... it’s been so far away for so long. That was like another lifetime. Everything I’ve done, it was for the drums. My destiny... what I thought was my destiny. But they never stopped. No matter what world I conquered or what life I took. Never. Except...’  
  
‘They’re gone now?’  
  
‘Yes. I feel like I’m seeing for the first time since... since I can hardly remember. It’s... strange.’  
  
‘Hmmm,’ the Doctor sighed. ‘The question remains then, what do we do now?’  
  
‘What indeed.’  
  
‘You can’t keep that body...’  
  
‘I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s... wrong.’ The Master smiled shyly at the bemused expression on his former rival’s face. ‘I don’t want to. Whatever that Ianto boy did to me, I owe him the world. Also, I have to confess that the sight of him makes my heart beat faster and that’s not down to me. This body just doesn’t fit.’  
  
The Doctor went for the old raised eyebrow. ‘Should I be jealous?’ he asked, lightly.  
  
However the Master looked up at him with a far more serious countenance. A hand curled around the back of the Doctor’s neck and pulled him down a little as if for a kiss, but the Doctor jerked back.  
  
Suddenly, he was afraid for the safety his sonic screwdriver all over again - a completely irrational reaction given the obvious changes in his old enemy’s personality. So irrational that he chuckled, nervously.  
  
The Master finally pulled away and shuffled out of his arms. ‘I’m sorry, you know for...’  
  
‘Forget it. We’re past that.’  
  
The Time Lord in Jack’s body nodded, uncertainly since they obviously weren’t past that, before finding his own space to sit down in. ‘I think I have a solution, by the way. To this problem.’  
  
‘Oh?’  
  
‘It occurs to me that I need a body. Further to that is the consideration that we have a spare.’  
  
‘We do?’  
  
The Master nodded and grinned.

  
***  
  


Jack awoke, rather gracelessly, with a yelp and a shudder. He sprang up and managed to headbutt Gwen right in the forehead.  
  
She fell back and took Owen down with her. They landed together in a tangled heap on the floor, each trying to get up without touching the other too much and trading some pretty fruity insults.  
  
Toshiko put a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.  
  
‘Jack? Can you hear me?’ Ianto asked and squeezed his hand.  
  
‘Um... sure. What’s going on?’ He looked around the Hub and at his team, understandably disconcerted.  
  
‘What do you remember?’  
  
Jack scratched his forehead and squinted his eyes, in the way people sometimes do when looking into the past. ‘Giant slug.’ Something hit him then and he looked more than a little shocked. ‘Lucy... the ring... the Master...’  
  
‘Shh shh.’ Ianto held him down by the shoulders to keep him seated. ‘It’s fine. You’re alright.’  
  
‘I heard his voice in my head. He was everywhere... Like he was crawling into my mind.’ He shuddered and fought his way past Ianto to get to his feet. ‘Where’s the Doctor? Is he alright?’  
  
‘He’s fine. Everything is.’ Ianto sighed and, after a quick glance at the team, set propriety aside for once to grab Jack in a hug. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he mumbled into his ear, under his breath.  
  
Jack clung on and held him tightly, in the way that made their bodies slot together like jigsaw pieces. ‘Never.’  
  
Above their heads a familiar sound echoed down through the Hub and a stray gush of air ruffled the papers from their desks. 

  
***  
  


‘I take it you’re feeling better?’ the Doctor observed, wryly, clearly bemused to see the Master waltzing alone to some Strauss.  
  
‘The TARDIS and I have come to an understanding, despite our history.’  
  
‘That’s not what I meant.’  
  
The Master lost his beat a step but picked it back up quick enough for it not to be too noticeable. ‘Are you asking if I’ve got used to waking up in the body of a robotic nymph? Passably so.’  
  
‘No longer a Time Lord,’ the Doctor observed. ‘That must take some adjustment.’  
  
‘In spiritu, Doctor, in spiritu. But I at least got my immortality wish, or near enough. If they can’t make synthetic human-robot hybrids to really last in the year one hundred trillion, there’s no hope for them. Even if they did eschew this model for the advantages of existing as flying metal balls in a fiery environment; I suppose that’s a form of robotic natural selection.’ He paused for a moment and brushed his hands through his long blonde hair. ‘I have to admit, I miss Lucy a little. Soulless plaything though she was.’ The Master quickly shook that off and smiled at him, alluringly. ‘Also, it will take some time getting used to being female.’  
  
Yet again the Doctor moved a little closer. ‘I suppose if you get tired of it, we can find a new, more masculine robotic body for you somewhere out there.’  
  
‘Not sure I have the strength to transfer again. Nearly didn’t make it out of our dear Captain. But thank you for offering, that’s very... chivalrous of you.’ He extended a hand. ‘Care to dance Doctor?’ The Master ran his hands down his slender stomach and around his newly acquired curves. ‘This body was made for dancing.’  
  
The Doctor held back and pondered just how surreal this situation was. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the Master’s transformation but he knew and trusted Ianto’s power to rid the other Time Lord of his demons, and could sense his sincerity for himself. Still it didn’t make it any less strange and unexpected to have him, his lifelong friend and enemy, dancing in circles around his TARDIS and inviting him to dance with little in the way of ulterior motives.  
  
‘You know, the last time we danced, you stole my TARDIS key and crashed her into the side of the academy.’  
  
‘That was an accident...’ the Master began, but then backed down contritely, ‘alright, I was annoyed you graduated to TARDIS holder before me. But I have no intention of doing anything like that now. I’m reformed.’  
  
Finally, he accepted her hand and they moved easily into a waltz. ‘Oh really?’  
  
‘Absolutely. I’m a living, walking cliché; the tortured soul on a quest for absolution. I have a lot to make up for. I’d like to start with you, if you’ll let me.’  
  
‘Oh?’ He twirled him around and dipped him in time to the music, even though it was a move that didn’t really belong to a waltz of that tone.  
  
‘Yes. What was the first thing I ever took from you? Do you remember?’  
  
He remember alright, but he wasn’t about to say it. So the Doctor shook his head and feigned innocence.  
  
‘It was this.’ The Master turned and pulled him closer and moved him into a kiss. His arms wrapped around the Doctor and their bodies sealed comfortably together, the music and the dance entirely forgotten.  
  
This time, the Doctor didn’t shy away. He leaned in and realised that yes, Ianto had been right all along; he had known who his other half was. He had always known. Not Rose, but the one soul who had been with him his whole life, regardless of separation, regardless of their endless battles, and regardless even of death on occasion.  
  
He broke the kiss and smoothly resumed the dance all the way to its finishing bars. When it ended, he decided that it had been something of a long refrain; in many ways, they had basically been dancing for over nine hundred years.  
  
The perfect time, then, to bring it to a conclusion at last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was probably my weirdest ever contribution to fandom - so, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, comments are a surefire way to brighten my day. And if you don't have time for that, a Kudos only takes a second and is appreciated.
> 
> Got more time to read? I have more Jack/Ianto stories! From 2007:
> 
> Victorian Era Time Travel Love Story [24k, M] | [The Mirror in the Morgue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897986)  
> Time Travel Angst [12k, M] [mpreg] | [A Ray, Turned Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899570/)  
> Evil Twin Shenanigans [10k, E] | [Ifan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899729)  
> Dark AU Hurt/Comfort [12k, M] | [They're Still Killing Suzie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898610)  
> Outsider POV Mystery [8k, M] | [Random Clocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899876)  
> Sad AU Love Story [16k, E] | [One Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900824)  
> Light Porny Fun [6k, E] | [Symbiosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900989)  
> Collaboration Kid Series [75k, M] | [The Caerleon Series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140731)
> 
> And here are some new fics for 2021:
> 
> Ianto vs The Void [14k, T]: [The Pub on the Edge of Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588298)  
> Jack Gets a Happy Ending [2k, G]: [What will become of us now (at the end of time)?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684646)  
> Eye Candy, Companion, Time Agent... Who is Ianto Jones? [48k, M]: [The Eight Lives of Ianto Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871159)


End file.
